Steve Portigal on Writing, part 2

The Informed Life

Steve Portigal is an independent user research consultant. He is the author of Interviewing Users and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries. Steve and I both have new books, so we thought it’d be fun to compare notes on writing non-fiction. In this, the second of two episodes on the subject, we focus on the process of writing. If you haven’t done so already, listen to our previous conversation, which focused on our motivations.

Show notes

• Steve Portigal
• Steve Portigal - LinkedIn
• Portigal Consulting
• Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (2nd edition) by Steve Portigal
• Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories by Steve Portigal
• Duly Noted: Extend Your Mind Through Connected Notes by Jorge Arango
• Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places by Jorge Arango
• Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango
• Scrivener
• Tinderbox
• The Informed Life episode 99: Mark Bernstein on Tinderbox
• Freeform on the App Store
• Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott (PDF)
• Jack Kerouac - Wikipedia
• The Informed Life episode 2: Gretchen Anderson on Writing

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Chapter

1. Steve Portigal on Writing, part 2 (00:00:00)

2. The Process of Writing Nonfiction (00:00:44)

3. The Mechanics of Writing and Organizing Ideas (00:01:30)

4. The Challenges and Joys of Writing a Book (00:03:14)

5. The Role of Structure in Writing (00:05:15)

6. Using Different Tools (00:10:04)

7. Reflections on Writing (00:25:15)

8. Closing (00:34:27)