Why users are of no use
Pelle Aug 13th
Recently during one of our Friday morning sessions at TraceWorks (50% bacon, 50% new ideas) we discussed the future road map of Headlight.
Obviously we get a lot of new ideas from our customers. We appreciate any new idea. Really, we do! But sometimes the ideas of customer just aren’t wild enough.
Simply because we want Headlight to go in new directions ideas discussed internally are much wilder than suggestions from customers. In these cases I don’t necessarily believe in user driven innovation:
Of what use, to Henry Ford, would have been a market survey of the pre-1914 demand for private cars?
J.C. Jones, Design Methods (1970/92)
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It is a fine point, but I would have to disagree with it on some accounts.
One. There is a radical difference between then and now. If you asked someone in fordian times whether they needed a faster, mechanic vehicle, granted they’d look at you with confusion.
If you asked someone today (in a survey) if they needed to go faster, go bigger, go better in something new, what do you think the answer would be?
No, I like what I got?
Two.I think a survey where you ask whether something specific should exist or not will always fail. It will always be the underlying needs that are important. Did the survey of pre-1914 demands target needs or the specific invention.
A survey rarely indicates exactly what should be invented. More what direction the invention should take. To paraphrase Eric von Hippel: manufacturers possess the knowledge of the solution possibilities, while the users possess the knowledge about needs.
Three. The above is not always the case if you talk about users of something already _in_ existence. Something like a tool, or a service that needs improvement.
Users often have very clear opinions of what should be invented. A lot of the inventions and innovations within the mining field in the 1800s (pre-fordian times) were actually derived from suggestions made by workers, and engineers using the systems. Not some grand scheme far-away thinkers.
Very often when I consider new ideas, I don’t really get the point at first - and I guess most people are like me in this matter.
Just consider a few things that have hit the market recently: Tabs in browsers - why not just settle with what you’ve already gotten used to? I discovered tabs by accident back in 2003 and can’t live without it now. But surely I didn’t see it as something revolutionary back then.
iPod’s with color screen - why go there on a MP3 player?
Cell phones with fancy stuff like tv - why would I want to see a rerun of Friends on a monitor tinier than my fist?
Nevertheless try to ask me in two years if I can live without those things.
I guess the most radical innovation in all of this is really that people have come to expect everything to change. But with increasingly shorter and shorter interval.
Nobody really expects the browser to hit some kind of equilibrium at any one time.
The concept of an Internet Explorer 4.0 as the end-all of all future webbrowsing seemed somewhat unatural even at the time of Windows 98. (Although Microsoft and substantial parts of the web community might have pretended differently).
But as we flip the calendar leaves of time the cycle of change is wound increasingle more tight. We crave something new. In fact we do not trust things that does not come versionated (or in continued new editions.
I have a hard time imagining humanity sitting down one day and proclaiming, ‘yes, dammit - now we have all the tools we will ever need’. That’s why I will continue to ask, and try to second guess just what those unfulfilled needs might be. And maybe that new tab will come along in the process. Or maybe it will come by without me asking. But it will be there. When you open your browser. In 2010.
Off course we will never stop evolving. But in some rare cases, the users do not know what they want.
Then - and only then? - should we take the time to decide for them.
Without going wittgensteinian I believe it is hard to discuss things not yet invented since we can only talk of that we already know.
‘Why users are only of use in usable usability issues’ or ‘Why users are of no use for brainstorming the future’ would be titles closer to how I would think for this post. Users are always of use one way or another - sometimes you can get the little sparkle for the idea which reinvents the entire system from a ’silly user idea’, but of course once in a while they want you to ‘reinvent the wheel’… But you never know if there’s something in there if you never listen
Interesting and thought provoking post either way, and keep coming with the wild ideas!
Hi Emil,
Since I have a lot of communication with customers, I do believe they can add important information about use and also contribute with new ideas.
But for the “let’s build a rocket that can also scuba dive”-stuff I - sometimes at least - to be too narrow in their way of thinking.