[Sigia-l] Do Make Me Think!

[Ziya Oz]

Zbigniew Lukasiak:

> Consumers always have more knowledge about their needs than the
> producers

That's not always the case.

Design is the articulation of needs/wants in the form of a product/service.

I'm sure everyone has experienced the quintessential moment where they
realize that they never knew they needed/wanted some product until after
they use it and it just "clicks."

The devilish aspect of design is precisely this "articulation" part. Users
are notoriously bad at it. Having inherent/unexpressed needs and being able
to articulate what they are in the form of a potential product/service are
two different things.

The recent canonical example of this is the iPod. When people were shown the
early crop of MP3 players they didn't care too much. But when shown the iPod
they loved it, it "clicked." In other words, it's extremely hard to get
users to coherently organize myriad of needs/wants into some form resembling
a modern MP3 player, let alone a diminutive iPod nano.

Design can't be delegated to users. (There are many other things, though,
that can be.)

----
Ziya

Usability >  Simplify the Solution
Design >  Simplify the Problem