Steps to Getting Users’ Insights while Avoiding a Bruised Ego | Hacker News Reader

Steps to Getting Users’ Insights while Avoiding a Bruised Ego

blog.smartbear.com

39 pointsBaustin7 comments

I've long used the quote "end users don't know what they want until they don't see it in the final product". I don't remember where I picked that one up, but it's been proven true time and time again.

This is why you can discover, design and wireframe something until you're blue in the face, but nothing compares to putting something functional in front of your users.

Even if it's just something as basic as clickable wireframes (something Balsamiq Mockups does pretty well), or a super basic first pass HTML (for web apps), you will get much better feedback from your potential users.

Sometimes developers and designers forget the huge amount of domain-specific knowledge and skill that their opinions and insights are built on top of, and that the end user doesn't have this.

Very true. We expect users to know explicitly what they want, and be familiar with structured analysis. That's just not the case. This is why prototyping is so important.

It's kind of like, "I don't know what I want at a restaurant until I see what's on the plate of everyone else at my table."

I think its more common that developers forget the huge amount of domain-specific knowledge the users have - not about development but about the problem the software is trying to solve. Always focus user research on what the end user is trying to accomplish. Then design the simplest way to solve their problem and present it to them in some kind of prototype/mock/wireframe. Ask them to walk through it mentally with common situations, then ask them to evaluated it in their less common scenarios. Then finally you can ask if they have any suggestions. Take this new information back and repeat.

Designing an interface is not a technical problem like configuring a server - it is about communication.

I think the idea of having the users compare/contrast two sketches is useful. As you said, they have trouble telling you what they want, but have no problem telling you what they don't want. Especially if they're visual thinkers.

ob.: A Developer and a User walk into a Bar. User says "Why aren't you done yet? Those screens look fine to me." The Developer replies "Fuck you, I'm fully vested."

I don't usually do this, but the timing is just so perfectly aligned with today's SMBC:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3188#comic

I was expecting a list of developer jokes.

Sorry about that. If you're looking for a laugh, I actually do have a few developer/QA comics that I published to the same blog a while ago:

http://blog.smartbear.com/cartoons/so-i-heard-you-guys-like-...

http://blog.smartbear.com/mobile/5-software-cartoons-to-get-...

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