Above: No two ethernet snowflakes are exactly alike. This photo was taken from the roof of our office by the boltron.

We Helped Stanford Battle H1N1 Using the Power of Design and Google

Bolt | Peters recently advised Stanford University and various public health departments on the design of a Google Sites template for H1N1 and general emergency information. It was a fascinating design challenge on a breakneck deadline, and we’ve documented the whole process on the B|P blog!

Read about the process »

15% Off Our Services in December

It’s well-known that remote research reverses climate change and cures swine flu, but did you know that it also makes an amazing holiday gift? We’re giving 15% off on all remote studies, training, and expert design evaluation that’s booked through the month of December. It doesn’t have to be completed, but just started. You know how that goes. Drop us an email!

Let’s talk about this »

Time-Aware Research is the Heart and Soul of Accurate Behavioral Data

By now UX researchers are familiar with the importance of understanding the usage context of an interface–the physical environment where people are normally using an interface. Remote research opens the door to conducting research that also happens at the moment in people’s real lives when they’re performing a task of interest.

Read Up on Rosenfeld.com »

We’re Moving to 576 Natoma!

It’s only two blocks from our current office in SOMA, San Francisco, but after three years at our current awesome space, we finally have to move. Luckily we found a sweet 4,000sq ft space close by that will be our very own whole building, with room for workshops, events, and our rocking team of six UX researchers, designers, cognitive scientists, artists, and rappers. We just signed the lease and will be all moved in by the new year. In addition, we’ll be sharing the space with our new developer homies at Exygy. Stay tuned for our 8yr party / house warming in 2010!

I Can Haz Photoz? »

Web and Flow: A Short History of the Interwebnetz in SF

They say that the only industries that made money after the Gold Rush were shovels and blue jeans. In the last fifteen-or-so years, SF has seen another rush, this time to the Internet; so what will be the real cashmaker this time around? Our bet’s on iPhones and skinny jeans. Anyway, we’re working on a stop-motion video timeline of Web companies in SF. We could really use your help making sure we get the history right, so please check out our list and add any web companies we’ve forgot or messed up as a comment. One rule – the company has to still be around. So like Flickr counts, but maybe not Pets.com. And as Dan Harrelson pointed out, we will consider companies that enable the web also, in addition to startups and agencies. Anyone all up on the net.

HELP US WITH HISTORY »

Yelp Us Out

We’re on Yelp now! Want to praise us to the skies for a past user research study, design project, or our little-known sideline in pastry catering? Want to nag us for the time we left the cake in the rain? Follow that link!

Five stars, please »

Truly Yours,

The Good Folk of B|P

Above: pieces to the remote puzzle exercise at our Escape The Lab workshop. You got this update from Bolt | Peters, a research firm in SF, because you know us, have attended an event, or use the Ethnio mothership.

Escape The Lab Sold Out!

On August 26th we trained a packed room of UX researchers in the key techniques of remote user research at our first-ever workshop, Escape The Lab. It was rad, and we got a 92% approval rating. Of course, we can train your team in remote methods too – drop us a line to learn more, check out the ETLAB twitter chatter, or peruse the pictures (which were taken by the mad-skilled Lisbetho):

Vote for This SXSW Panel Please

Want to hear the ultimate research war stories at next year’s SXSW? Then vote for our panel, “FAIL: When User Research Goes Horribly, Horribly Wrong” featuring our own Nate Bolt, along with Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting, Dan Saffer from Kicker Studiors, Mark Trammell at Digg, and Aviva Rosenstein from Ask.com. These grizzled veterans share their most embarrassing research fiascos so that everyone can learn. Should be enlightening and hilarious.

Vote for Nate, Steve Portigal, Dan Saffer, Aviva Rosenstein, and Mark Trammell! »

Top Ten UX Mistakes on Consumer Websites

Nobody loves top ten lists more than the internet, and since we’ve conducted user research on roughly a thousand million consumer web sites, we thought it might be nice to list the top ten mistakes we see large organizations make with their websites’ user experience.

Read The Blog Post »

Still Freaking Out That Gmail Went Down

Like many in the webs, we’re still jittery and panic-striken from Gmail going down this week for a whole 100 minutes. We’ll be okay though.

Btw, Our Research Rocks

We’ve recently finished remote studies for Mint.com, Autodesk, Esurance, and lots of other folks. Happy to talk with you about your UX situation, as always.

Let’s Talk »

Truly Yours,
The Gentle People of B|P

We dedicate this edition of our newsletter to the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama. Our own Kate Nartker commemorates the occasion with a felt Obama logo:

View the logo on flickr »

Just a reminder: in addition to publishing cute newsletters, we also do kick-ass UX work that settles arguments, gets design priorities straight, dramatically increases conversion, and gives you an excuse to eat popcorn and Junior Mints in the office while watching sessions. You should totally call us.

Tell us about your project »

No time or budget to put on a full-scale user research project in this crap-fiesta of an economic downturn? No problem! We can intercept real-life customers, cut through the bullsh*t, and help with concrete design changes based on behavioral research – all in a casual, one-day study.with serious results.

Tell me more about UX Blitz »

If you’re curious about how B|P applied our user experience focus and HCI principles to the Spore player research project, then our upcoming article inBoxes and Arrows will be for you—watch for it early next week.

Subscribe to the Boxes and Arrows Blog »

That’s right: we said it. Bolt | Peters biz is down by about 30% from this time last year, and setting projects up is taking about three times as long. Now, since we showed you ours, will you show us yours? Take our anonymous mini-survey, ‘cuz we’re all dying to get a better idea of just what the state of the tech industry is like lately. If you just want to cheat and see what everybody else is saying, you can do that, but deep down in your heart you’ll know you peeked.

Cast your votes here plz »

If you’ll be around San Francisco on Thursday, February 26th, mark your calendar for our seven-year birthday party! Dig the invite on Upcoming orFacebook. There will be a full(-ish) bar, tasty snacks, and a local soul/jazz quartet fronted by the illmatic Joe Bagale.

More Party Info on Upcoming »

Holy moly! We were floored by the amount of enthusiasm for URF 2008. Nearly 200 people joined us at the Mighty Gallery & Bar in San Francisco to enjoy drinks, bacon-flavored chocolates, and a stellar line-up of speakers. The audience twittered, took pictures, shmoozed, and generally had a great time —Cooper Journal and Core77 wrote up their experiences. It was such a success that we’re planning an ’09 edition, as well as possibly another one in Portland. If you have a great suggestion for a topic or presenter, email us!

Hear about the next one »

Finally, everybody can stop chattering at parties about the lack of deep, knowledgeable books about remote research methods. What, that’s never happened to you? Well, we’re writing one anyway. Rosenfeld Media has signed Nate & Tony (not pictured below, we swear) to co-author the book, which is due out in late 2009. Check the Rosenfeld site for more info.

Peruse the book details »

Are you still testing users in a lab? Sign up for your first remote study with B|P, and if you don’t like it better than the lab, we’ll give you your money back – seriously. How serious, you ask? Up to $30k serious. (Some restrictions apply, of course, but it’s on the honor system, so go here to take the challenge.)

“Lab testing is soooo last year…”
– Brian Beaver, Director, Creative Services / Sony Electronics, Inc.

“Lab testing is like pornography —
bad lighting, awkward, and much about it is fake. Remote testing is messy, real, and honest, just like getting it on.”
– Peter Merholtz, President, Adaptive Path

“Lab testing is cool if you like to waste money
and eat M&Ms. Remote testing is cool if you actually want to know what your users think.”
– Maya Pacheco, Senior Product Manager, Autodesk.com

Take the Challenge

Since we made Ethnio free and awesome, there have been over 6 million people who have seen an Ethnio recruiting screener, 250,000 people who have filled one out, and over 20 requests per second to the ol’ Ethnio servers. That is so holy crap. Big thanks to everyone who has used it over the years, and sorry for the down time and time-outs and time-warps. We learned it from Twitter (burn!). With some help from a few local Rails geniuses, we’ll be eliminating the downtime and dishing out more of the raw recruiting vengeance you can’t help but love.
Dig on Ethnio