If every (design) company is jumping on the user-centered design bandwagon, shouldn’t someone suspect that there is something fishy going on? I mean did I miss a fundamental paradigm shift in our society in the sense that everybody has become altruistic and only wants the best for each other? Group hug anyone? It is still business, Jim, and still as we know it. Simply put: with user-centered design there is something to gain. Better products you might say, at least that is the benefit that is fiercely promoted by the user-centered design followers. Wrong! User-centered design is there to cut cost. The costs of having expensive designers explore several possible products on end and only deliver a product that nobody wants. So it seems only logical to ask users in advance to give input and kill the darlings of the designers because the users are not interested in them. In the end users reduce the risk of designing unwanted products. So user-centered design is risk-centered design. And if costs are cut shouldn’t we, as users, someone benefit from this, that is, not get better products but CHEAPER products. Not something I noticed recently as a ‘user’.

So the evil empire of user-centered designers exploits us as users to do their dirty work and still let us pay full price in the end. But revenge is at hand: a story of deceit and misguidance… Somehow user-centered designers have the following assumptions:
• Insight in user needs are necessary for product innovation
• Users can articulate their needs
• Users are consistent
• Users are not socially sensitive (to what the designer wants and to other users in the ‘focus’ group)
• Users in ‘user-centered design sessions’ are the sum of all users.
There is a lot of scientific evidence to counter these assumptions. For instance a lot of major innovations were technology pushed with no user in sight. There is also a lot of psychological evidence available on decision-making and need articulation that seriously let’s you doubt your own ‘rational’ grip on your daily life. To sum it up: user input is overestimated, unreliable and not representative.

So there is our revenge: designers listening in on us but we haven’t got a clue what we’re doing and saying. And there is your Catch22: if designers don’t reward us with cheaper product we are more then willing to give them bogus input. Losers!

tagged with: psychology, user centered design

Comments

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