Steve Portigal

Steve Portigal is an experienced user researcher and consultant who helps organizations to build more mature user research practices. Over the past 25 years, he has interviewed hundreds of people, including families eating breakfast, film production accountants, hotel maintenance staff, architects, realtors, home-automation enthusiasts, credit-default swap traders, and rock musicians. He has informed the development of commercial lighting controls, medical information systems, professional music gear, wine packaging, design systems, work-from-home practices, financial services, corporate intranets, videoconferencing systems, and music streaming services.

Steve is the author of two books: Interviewing Users: How To Uncover Compelling Insights, and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories. He's also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast, where he interviews people who lead user research in their organizations. Steve is an in-demand presenter who gives talks and leads workshops at corporate events and conferences around the world.

He built one of the first online communities (Undercover, a Rolling Stones fan group) in 1992, nurturing it from a time when the Internet was an underground academic technology through to today.

After growing up near Toronto, Steve eventually made his way to the San Francisco Bay Area where he’s been for more than 25 years. He lives in the coastal town of Montara with his partner Anne and their silly dog Ripley. Steve loves to travel and eat interesting food and to take pictures of travel and interesting food. He also really loves to nap.

You can find Steve at portigal.com.