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What Green Eggs and Ham and UX Research have in common
Sam-I-Am’s quest in Green Eggs and Ham is identical to our quest as UX researchers.
Has it been a few years since you read the book Green Eggs and Ham? Perhaps you’ve never had the pleasure? If you’d like a refresher, you can search for the full text online or watch a video rendition here.
Basically, the book is about Sam-I-Am urging an unnamed man to eat green eggs and ham. The book, in lyrical Dr. Seuss fashion, shows this man rejecting green eggs and ham in every possible scenario — until the end, when he tries them, and it turns out that, to his great surprise, he likes them.
As a caretaker of a small child, I concluded this book was about encouraging children to eat broccoli, or Brussels sprouts, or any other often-rejected food.
Recently I came up with a different interpretation. In Sam-I-Am’s place, let’s put a researcher at a tech company and make the unnamed man a non-research stakeholder.
Let’s begin with how Sam-I-Am teaches us not to take resistance personally.
Don’t take resistance personally
That Sam-I-Am, that Sam-I-Am. I do not like that Sam-I-Am!
