Successive waves of technology change what is possible in information services, and to stay relevant, information professionals face two challenges. First, they must be willing to learn all about the new tools as they appear. Second, they must learn--or relearn--the crucial characteristics of users. In this article, the author focuses on the second challenge, which is to know how users are adapting, what makes them tick, and what can be done in the local settings to improve their information experience. In the author's opinion, it is equally important to study people as attentively as one studies technology; people are just endlessly fascinating, and the device-technology interface is one of the great stories of one's lifetime. Many people are deeply involved in ongoing survey efforts that may be very large in scale or more focused on local sites. They can draw many conclusions from this growing knowledge base. But despite how useful survey research is, it is no substitute for direct study of the people one works with every day. How can information professionals best expend their energies when it comes to understanding their users? There are many answers to that question, of course. The author has a few favorites that he has grouped into five sections.