What people want 16 Aug 2006

Esquire's Chuck Klosterman demonstrates the dangers of listening to what people say:

"I worked in newspapers for eight years, right when that industry was starting to disintegrate. As such, we spent a lot of time talking with focus groups, forever trying to figure out what readers wanted. And here is what they wanted: everything. They wanted shorter stories, but also longer stories. They wanted more international news, but also more local news. And more in-depth reporting. And more playful arts coverage. And less sports. And more sports. And maybe some sports on the front page...it's useless to ask people what they want; nobody knows what they want until they have it."

This reminded us of comments made by Mac junkies when Apple announced that it would be releasing an MP3 player. They didn't know that they wanted an iPod until they had one.

Listening to subjective opinion can be extremely dangerous. It can lead you down the wrong path or paralyse you altogether. That's why our user testing focuses on what people do, not just what they say they do.