Lately I’ve been following the user vs expert-discussion prompted this time by an article in Wired Magazine featuring the guys from 37signals. It’s an old discussion, but as users get more and more involved on different levels of design processes the question of who you are designing for pops up more frequently. Hence the Norman vs 37signals-dispute isn’t the only thing out there touching upon the subject. Here too user involvement is questioned.
To me the discussion is exciting, but disturbing too. I must admit that initially I felt that my area of expertise was under heavy attack. But then again I guess that the etnographic method and it’s user/human focus has been under attack for more than hundred years now, so just because the world of tech has discovered the user fairly recently, and might abandon listening to them already doesn’t mean that I’m becoming obsolete. Still the dicussion is disturbing though.
As I strove my way through the first sixtysomething comments on 37signals’ answer to Norman I wondered why everybody assumed that one side of the table was wrong and the other right. I saw nobody questioning the premises of the whole disucssion. Why ask if the user is right, and on the other side why ask if the expert is? Who is right should nok count for anything in development!
Why?
1) The user: It’s not about the user being right or wrong nor is designing for the user about succumbing to the user’s needs and wishes. It’s all about the user EXPERIENCE and how that experience is interpreted and analyzed. From my point of view you’re doing a pretty bad user experience job if you act as nothing else than a spokes person for the user’s needs.
2) The expert: “Call it arrogance or idealism, but they would rather fail than adapt. ‘I’m not designing software for other people, ‘Hansson says. ‘I’m designing it for me.’ ” (quote from above mentioned article). To that I have to ask: which designer live on a far away deserted planet, isolated from other people or in a vacuum without the possibility of interaction, conversations with, and inspiration from fellow human beings? No products arise in a vacuum. We are all engaged in and influenced by our surroudings including other people, let’s call them users, and products are a result of that. In addition, the designer may be an expert, but she’s most likely a user too…
Thus the discussion is in vain from my point of view. It’s not about who is right or wrong, but all about experience.
2 comments so far
Jane, thank you for raising this point. I also think in order to design great products and services you have to focus on the experience. Such a design process can create products that are more than the sum of their parts and in addition holistically balance the users or experts needs and expectations.
Hi Alex. Thanks for your comment. I agree. Maybe you could tell me how you balance experts’ (designers and developers) knowlegde and ideas with user needs in your work?