Great article: learning from hostage negotiators
Really interesting article on Boxes and arrows: what design researchers can learn from hostage negotiators. I’ve used something akin to the coach role in user-studies that I have conducted in the past, though in our case the coach also had the role of note-taker, freeing the lead interviewer to be able to listen carefully to the interviewee without being distracted by getting the key points down on paper. Nonetheless, an essential part of the note-taker’s role was to notice if the interviewer had missed some interesting avenue to follow, and prompt (but not take over the dialogue).