Gumshoe Field Notes — Executive summaries

Real Data Exposes the Assumptions in a Prototype

Rob Fay — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Real records can expose conditions that polished mockups miss. In a provider-directory project, phone extensions, incomplete information and overseas military addresses prompted a return to the prototype. The proposed approach separates editing from reading, revealing applicable entry fields and omitting empty values in display. It remains a design hypothesis, neither implemented nor validated. Planned research will observe whether participants can enter and understand these variations. Proxy and AI-agent reviews can sharpen the questions, but agreement between agents is not evidence that actual users will succeed.

Key takeaways

Bring incomplete and varied records into design exploration early.
Test proposed editing and display patterns with actual users.
Treat proxy and agent reviews as hypotheses, not usability evidence.

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AI Doesn't Replace Expertise. It Distributes the Frameworks Behind It.

Rob Fay — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

AI can make the methods behind specialist expertise available to more people, but access to a framework is not equivalent to expert judgment. Drawing on AI-assisted design review, this article explores how specialized roles can check accessibility, responsive behavior, design-system consistency and content clarity. The opportunity is more consistent review within a shared context. The limit is equally important: simulated personas and automated findings generate questions, not proof of usability. Humans must challenge conclusions and decide what requires validation with real users.

Key takeaways

Use specialist frameworks to make review more consistent.
Treat automated audits and simulated personas as inputs to research.
Keep a qualified human accountable for decisions and validation.

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Leveraging Personas to Make Better Business Decisions

Rob Fay — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Research-based personas can connect customer needs with everyday business and product decisions, but many teams leave them unused. This article examines why technical priorities, business goals and delivery pressure can crowd out understanding of real users. It distinguishes assumption-based proto personas from validated research findings and describes the kinds of information that can make a customer story useful. Practical examples include linking personas to user stories, displaying them in shared spaces and creating trading cards. The goal is a recurring customer perspective in decisions, not a decorative deliverable.

Key takeaways

Distinguish provisional assumptions from research-based personas.
Validate customer stories through contact with target users.
Embed personas in team routines and decision-making artifacts.

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The Case for Pruning

Rob Fay — Fri, 07 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Product teams often reward adding capabilities while overlooking the value of removing them. Through examples from gardening, ships and home renovation, this article examines how accumulated complexity can make products harder to use and change. It considers habits and incentives that discourage subtraction, then proposes ways to make simplification a regular part of delivery. Recurring customer feedback and measures of experience can reveal where pruning is needed. Planned reflection and explicit enhancement work can give teams permission to simplify rather than treating every addition as progress.

Key takeaways

Measure customer experience to identify unnecessary complexity.
Create planned opportunities to review and simplify the product.
Recognize useful subtraction as an enhancement worth celebrating.

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What is Service Design: Part 3 – Service Blueprinting

Rob Fay — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Service blueprints connect a customer's journey with the people, processes and resources that deliver it. A restaurant analogy distinguishes the visible dining-room experience from the work happening in the kitchen. The article describes evidence, customer actions, frontstage interactions, backstage activities and support processes as the blueprint's core ingredients. Employee accounts and internal research are needed to build and validate the picture across functional groups. Used well, the resulting artifact can expose systemic weaknesses, identify opportunities and clarify shared responsibility for the experience.

Key takeaways

Connect visible customer interactions with backstage work and support processes.
Build and validate the blueprint with employees across functions.
Use the artifact to expose weaknesses and clarify ownership.

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What is Service Design: Part 2 – Journey Mapping

Rob Fay — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A journey map represents a particular customer's experience across touchpoints, rather than the organization's view of its own process. Using a Cinderella analogy, this article argues that teams must first understand whose needs they are trying to meet. It outlines the ingredients of a useful map: persona, time frame, goals, milestones, activities, thoughts, feelings and touchpoints. The map should identify pain points, opportunities and ownership across organizational boundaries. Research, customer input and validation are essential if it is to represent the customer voice in service decisions.

Key takeaways

Define the persona, goals and time frame before mapping.
Capture activities, thoughts, feelings and touchpoints from the customer perspective.
Validate the map and use it to assign ownership of improvements.

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What is Service Design: Part 1 - Personas

Rob Fay — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Personas begin a three-part service-design approach that connects customer understanding, journey maps and service blueprints. This article explains how specific representations of customer groups can help teams make decisions grounded in needs and goals rather than organizational assumptions alone. Their value comes from research and from continued use in everyday conversations. Personas should reflect what the organization currently knows, remain open to revision and help people across the business consider the customer perspective. A persona that becomes an unchanging document on a shelf cannot serve that purpose.

Key takeaways

Ground personas in research about customer needs and goals.
Revise the customer story as evidence develops.
Bring personas into decisions rather than leaving them on a shelf.

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