Etre, the user experience design firm with the great blog, scores another point for why we should ignore users when designing products.

Just remember, a whole bunch of people decided before they ever tried using an iPod that it would never sell.

Nobody knows what they really want until they get it.

One user says he wants < insert feature here >, and the next says she wants the opposite. As I said in the book, you don’t get real answers by asking users what they want, you get them by watching what they do.

The lesson to be learned: never, ever, make a change to an application based on the comments of a few users. Just like one good default is better than 100 options, one good vision is better than 100 user comments.

Posted by Robert on November 16th, 2006