Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Through a User Researcher’s Eyes

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By Jessica Buttimer

Any time I read one of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, I think of how his writing applies to user research.   Outliers is the latest example.  Almost every chapter in the book can apply to User Centric, how we work, or the kinds of participants we recruit. 

The title itself is interesting, because in any research field, the term “outliers” refers to people who don’t fit the norm.  From a research perspective, outliers are undesirable.  We look for trends, and dismiss isolated and extreme cases.  However, Gladwell’s book is about how falling outside the norm led to wildly successful outcomes for certain people. 

The theme of the first part of Outliers can best be summed up as “The Accumulation of Advantage,” or in other words, how someone becomes set up to have an advantage over everyone else.

First Gladwell discusses health advantages enjoyed by people who live with a strong sense of community and are well-connected to one another.  This made me think of User Centric, because we work so well as a team, are very collaborative, and take advantage of opportunities to have fun together, both in and outside of the office.   It’s a healthy business community, so to speak.   It’s a nice place to work and we pride ourselves on being nice to work with.  We strive to make our clients’ jobs easier and to be the type of company we would want to hire ourselves.

The author also talks about individuals who have benefited by virtue of their birth date (determining their age compared to their peers), or from many hours of practice accrued in their chosen field.   I see parallels to User Centric here because we were founded in 1999 by experienced usability practitioners.  We’re definitely not the new kid on the block.  We have tested tens of thousands of participants.  Both maturity and experience on our side!

The book then addresses how genius alone is not a determining factor of success.  Geniuses can succeed or fail based on whether or not they have the social skills and savvy to navigate their world.  At User Centric, all of our consultants have either a master’s degree or Phd in a related field.   We’re a smart bunch, but we’re also scrappy, innovative, and creative in how we find solutions to meet our clients’ needs. 

Some of the successful “outliers” in the book are people who worked very hard under challenging conditions, but at the same time felt that their work was rewarding and meaningful.   At User Centric, we talk a lot about our passion for the user experience, but does it really mean anything?  I think it does, because we’ve clearly impacted a lot of people and made their lives easier.  It’s not just about helping corporations sell their products.  Many thousands, maybe millions, of people use the products we’ve tested or designed.  If a product is difficult to use or causes frustration, I can be the person who eliminates that frustration.  How good is that?  It truly is meaningful work.

Part two of Outliers has more to do with traditions and attitudes that affect an individual’s perspective and view of the world.   The lessons here are useful when applied to our recruiting practices.

This includes how important it is to acknowledge that peoples’ behaviors may be influenced by factors that even they aren’t aware would make a difference, for example, where they grew up.  Someone’s culture and ethnicity may significantly affect how they respond to and communicate with others, to a degree that international testing of users is essential (which is why we do a great deal of it.)  People in different cultures can, and do, perceive products very differently.

Finally, Gladwell discusses the roles of attitude and fortitude in success.  We tend to recruit based on who will be using a particular product, but even within those carefully defined groups, people will have widely varying levels of attitude (how they view something) and fortitude (how long they’ll stick with something before giving up), which may vastly impact results.    A sophisticated and robust approach to defining your target market should include an assessment of participants’ attitude and fortitude. 

Even though it may not be obvious at first, I think Outliers – and all of Gladwell’s other books, for that matter – have valuable nuggets not just for personal enrichment, but also to apply in the realm of user research.

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