Designing users
April 21, 2005
In the product design world, one of the truisms that gets bandied around all the time goes something like this: designers are not users; users are not designers.
"Don't listen to what users say," says Nielsen; "watch what they do."
In today's NYTimes, Virginia Postrel calls that conventional wisdom into question, exploring how at some companies, users - especially so-called "lead users" - are generating more innovative products than professional design teams:
"The Disney animators or Pixar animators are ahead on video editing tools from the ordinary consumer," Professor von Hippel said. "Yet we know the stuff that these guys develop now ends up migrating downstream to the general people over time."
To get people exactly what they want, user innovation suggests an alternative to mass customization.
File under: User Experience
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