Welcome!

I wanted to start a blog about a year and half ago, when I started trying to make sense of what I was interested in and what I wanted to do with my life. Then, life got in the way, and I let it go for a bit. Now, I find myself reflecting on what I want to do in my career, and I'm back at that point I was a year and a half ago, with one key difference: my desires and interests are more crystallized.

My experience and interests sit at the intersection of User Research and Data Science. I'm interested in how people use technology, how technology changes what people do, how technology can influence how people think and learn, how we can use what we know about how people think and learn to design and build better technology.

One side of that is user research: how can we figure out what people are doing, what they want to be doing? There are a wide range of methods to accomplish this, from qualitative to quantitative, formative to summative.

The other side of it is data science: how can we apply machine learning techniques and statistics to better understand what people are doing, and improve the experience for them?

I see the shape of blogs, and I realize that the odds are I'll start this, get some steam going for a while, and then trail off. I'm not sure if I'm a natural blog writer or if there's enough payoff for me in any form (personally, not in regards to anyone actually reading!). However, I intend this as a starting point for me to explore what I think it means to be at the intersection of User Research and Data Science.