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Buzzkill
Alternate dimensions
An Insurgency of Quality
Tyranny of the majority
I'm a big fan of democracy. I believe that every citizen should have equal access to power, that a community should express its values and priorities through elected officials, and that the outcome of an election is a critical expression of the state of that community.
Still, there are limits to the utility of democracy. You don't ask your friends to vote on the probable cause of your stomachache. Newspapers don't poll their readers when they're deciding what leads to pursue. Our elected officials don't ask us to decide whether a complicated bailout plan is the right course of action for stabilizing our financial system ... (Umm, actually, I take that back).
Makers of the excellent publishing platform Wordpress recently asked their users to vote on certain UI decisions in its next release. They didn't ask users to design the UI from scratch, but they did ask some strategic, fundamental UI questions:
Q.2: The La-Z-Boy goes: (a) to the left of the TV; (b) to the right of the table with the pizza on it; (c) under the reading light; (d) other: [please explain]
Here's a screenshot of the whole survey. The survey authors tried to be helpful by providing rationale for each option, but it sounded a little like the engineers at BMW asking me where I want my steering wheel and what intervals I want on the wiper switch. On one hand, it's a nice gesture; on the other, these questions are fundamental to the user experience of their product. Shouldn't it be the business of BMW to determine the appropriate implementation?
The point is: There ARE right answers to these questions. They are not matters of taste. The key to determining the answers, however, is deeply connected with a long-term strategy for the user experience. Does Wordpress have a long-term strategy for its UI? To use a counter-example: Facebook could have asked its users whether the News Feed was a good feature. (As you may recall, users initially hated it). Facebook kept it, with a slight modification, and it is now the foundation of the tool. That's strategy at work.
On a more philosophical note: When there is expertise in a field, why pretend that there isn't? When Wes Anderson makes a movie, he doesn't revisit the first principles of filmmaking and decide anew whether film editing is really something that an "expert" should be hired to do. He hires an editor because he knows that the editor will bring out the best in the film. I would argue that UI designers have a similar effect on the technology underlying a product. They're able to craft a cohesive whole from the disparate elements. Search is a disparate element that needs a place in the cohesive whole; why ask the community to decide where it fits in the experience?
Filed under: Critiques, Trends
Doug LeMoine is a director of interaction design at Cooper. In seven years at Cooper, his designs have helped orthopedic surgeons more precisely wield bone saws, revealed risk in mutual fund portfolios, and created a friendly way for elderly people to monitor and communicate about their health.
More entries by Doug
Comments
I wouldn't be too worried about WordPress polling their users. They didn't commit to adjust UI according to the "vox populi", and actually it could be interesting to see what such a huge user base has to say. If we can't accept feedbacks, we're in trouble...
WordPress has grown to an exceptional community-driven platform. I tend to give them the credit to know how to balance professional experience with user feedbacks. Keep the faith :-)
Cheers,
Yanay Zohar
aboutUX.com
I suppose you're right, Yanay, but I agree with Dave's comment (above). As Alan would say, if you're hitting a guy in the face, and then you ask him what he wants, the answer will probably be, "Stop hitting me in the face."
I agree that research and feedback are critical, and that we all have to ask for, and act on, the needs of our user communities. But I disagree that polling users about various design directions related to independent bits of interface is a good way for the designers to interact with the community.
I should also say that I'm a loyal Wordpress user, and I admire Wordpress's willingness to engage with their users. There's no shame in trying new techniques to try to keep a finger on the pulse of what people want. However, I want them to remember that Steve Jobs didn't ask his users to decide whether a jog-wheel or a rocker switch was the right interface for the iPod. If they really want to do the right thing, they'll do the work to determine what that right thing is, and they'll implement it. Their users (I mean, "We") will come to understand the wisdom, if it is indeed wise, even if we complain a bit at first.
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford
My favorite quote about asking users what they want as opposed to looking at what their goal is in the first place.
Hi, this reminds me the following happened long back (10 years or so) with me. One of my customer bought a new Compaq Notebook computer which has a track-ball on the lower-right corner and 2 buttons on the right side of the same corner. So he is operating it everyday without any problem.
One day he appointed an employee to assist in his everyday work who is a lefty (left handed). Now see how he can operate the notebook???.
In the first moment he wondered and asked why this track ball on the right side only? can't we move it? etc. and finally he bought an external mouse but still he had always faced problems while operating in car and when he forgot the mouse some times.
Thanks
Ashok Guduru,
Hyderabad.
The fundamental problem is what people think and say they want is often different then what they really want or need. That's why we (ixd) do design ethnography and contextual inquiries, not surveys and focus groups.