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C_bells t1_jdj5e55 wrote

Reply to comment by FormerKarmaKing in NYC’s Museum of Failure opens to make us feel better about our lives by NYY657545

I'm a product design & strategy lead (agency-side), and it's actually unique to get a client who is open to being told "you shouldn't make this."

Or even a client who is open to having us find out why we should make something, what it should do, how it should work etc before actually going to make it.

It's truly incredible how most major companies just decide to make something out of thin air pretty much. I'm working with a major airline right now who has never done any kind of strategy or discovery.

I do actually think Google tends to be pretty good at quickly and seamlessly scrapping things that don't have a high use rate. I've also been hired by them to do *just* discovery work, so I think they're way better than most.

But yeah. It's wild out there. It seems logical that making a new product would start with the question, "what do people want? What problems can we solve?" But most of the time, it does not.

Edit to add: I know Ford's famous quote of, "if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."

But before anyone says that sometimes tech needs inform people about what they want, it doesn't. I'd argue that Ford did exactly that -- made a faster horse. It's still what people wanted.

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atheros t1_jdjunbs wrote

A trivial amount of follow-up fixes that.

"Why do you want a faster horse?"
"So that I can get to my destination faster."
"What if I sold a machine that was faster than a horse that could be maintained like a tool rather than an animal?"
"That sounds good so far.."

People are bad at expressing themselves but it's easy to help them.

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C_bells t1_jdmxig2 wrote

Exactly! When I'm doing research, I design it all so that it's analytical and not literal.

So, if I'm doing a sketching session with people about a pet care app, I have them draw a fantasy physical space that would allow them to provide amazing care for their pets. Then break it down -- are there people there? Is it big or small? Outside or indoors? Etc etc.

You end up getting super interesting elements that could be turned into digital features. Like someone says that in their space, there's a group of friendly pet owners they can talk to. That leads me to realize we should create and test a social component in our app.

I still have other designers complain that sessions like this don't help them directly inform what to make.

But it's like, so you wanted random people to design an app for you? lmao

It's our job to find creative ways to address people's needs. That's literally what good design is.

It doesn't come from a random idea that seems cool, and it doesn't come from directly copying interfaces and features that already exist elsewhere (which is what most people are limited by in terms of ideation).

It's sad that so many people in tech don't think about core needs. It should be the basis of all our work.

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