Customers know what they want! ?? And yes, 90% of the time, you should build faster horses. A Spotify user once told me they wanted a category “Artists A-Z” with ALL artists listed alphabetically ?? It is true, the solutions our customers have in mind are often not well articulated, don’t take in all the context or are outright not feasible. And yes, we’re generally better positioned to figure out a good solution for not just that one user, but our overall audience. ?? “If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - the famous quote attributed to Henry Ford strikes at this notion. And it plays oh, so nicely into that belief we’ve been fed by behavioural economics et al - that we know other humans better than they know themselves. This has a lot more to do with hubris than actual fact. Because the cognitive biases and the lack of context all cut both ways. For every example like “Artist A-Z” I could give five where a customer told me exactly what they needed. When I worked in Liverpool for a local eCommerce business, the older women I’d do research with would use the google search bar to get to the google search bar. And yet they would cut through all the internal delusions about “editorial voice” and “aspirational offers” and “world class personalisation” and tell us they were simply hunting for good deals. ?? And sure enough, cold, boring offers were the thing that won 9/10 times over all our brilliant ideas. We don’t invent the car or the iPhone every day. So yes, building faster horses is, very often, exactly what we should do. What’s your take on this? #UX #productdesign
I agree with this post just so much! Thank you ??
> a Spotify user once told me they wanted a category "Artists A-Z" with ALL artists listed alphabetically I told you that in confidence, man
Hear hear! I see this quote trotted out so often to put down the value of research with users and customers in favour of blind technical advancement or a creative's vision. However, both are needed for innovation, and when we talk to (or observe) users we are attempting to understand their needs not ask them for the solution. Also depending on how you conduct your research you can still look into unmet far future needs through discovery. Let's be honest, when Ford mass-produced the car and famously made this quote the actual need was for a quick, easy and efficient form of personal transportation, not a petrol-engined cart on wheels. He should have produced a teleporter, but the tech could only deliver a model T.
Senior Design Researcher
1 年I feel that if it is a Usability test, then you are right. A lot of times, we do need to build faster horses. Also users do give very useful suggestions and feedback. But if it is a Discovery type of research, then maybe 'faster horses' is not the solution. We might want to look at the problem and think about how we can solve that effectively through various solutions by brainstorming etc and not just the one which the user suggests or seems to be logical at that time.