What do you do if user feedback is not aligning with your software design?

If user feedback does not align with your software design, conduct user interviews, surveys, or usability tests to learn more about their preferences and pain points. Analyze the feedback to determine whether the problem is caused by usability issues, functionality gaps, or misalignments between user expectations and the design's intent. For example, if users complain about a complex navigation structure, it may indicate the need for simplification or clearer labelling. Once the root cause has been identified, iterate on the design, taking into account user feedback to effectively address their needs and align the software design with their expectations.

As we know, the user is never wrong, his feedback is his real opinion based on his previous experiences and the result of interacting with the new software design. You need to figure out if its a single user feedback of a recurring one. From there you need to backtrack and breakdown the feedback, make sure you are aligned with the user's motivations, expectations and what are the gaps. Identify "low hanging fruits" remedies over major changes.

Delve deeper to understand why users are reacting negatively. Is it a genuine flaw in your design, or are users struggling to adapt to a new approach? Consider conducting user interviews or surveys to pinpoint the specific pain points. Understanding these reactions facilitates targeted improvements, fostering a more user-centric design process.

Sometimes it happens. This might be due to user not giving requirements properly. Or when we prepare functional/technical document we might have missed it i always say that any requirement given by end user will be only 50%. It get into better picture only after discussions, documentation etc. Whrn user see the pseudo screen he will get better idea and provide more details which will avoid the issue mentioned here this process may get failed sometimes. In yhis situation analyze / experiment the issur and then provide solutiom

All feedback is valuable. What you hear from feedback should add up to your knowledge base. "I don't like this button" doesn't necessarily mean you should take it out, but maybe "let's make this useful button easier to understand" or "this action is not valuable, if it must be offered, let's make it less prominent than the others". The more you learn about what you are doing, the better decisions you will make. Use user feedback as 1 of many sources for learning.

For starter, set a communication plan, where you share the design so everyone agree on what's gonna be built. If the communication was clear, and everyone agree upon the final result, and the result is 100% align with the original expectation, take the feedback and generate a change (using the concept of change management). If you didn't set a communication plan and agree before designing and delivering, you made a mistake. Correct it. The communication plan needs to establish weekly/biweekly meetings to check the progress and make the user/stakeholder participant of the process. That's the way to ensure the final result is the right one, having the chance to perform changes before finish. Change management helps with this.

Consider looking for a new career! Many years ago software was often written without thinking of customer needs. But in 2024 it makes no sense to design software without at least a general idea of what the customer wants.