Users are Idiots

     A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. - Douglas Adams 

1.       Users are Idiots: Keep your designs simple, because even the most obvious Use Case will be misunderstood. Imagine your users as a grandmother with ADD. Remember this, McDonalds put the pictures of their menu items on the register to simplify checkout for their employees; all of their employees still have to go through training.  

2.       Users are Idiots: Ignore their design suggestions.  If they had good ideas, they would be UX professionals.  Don't ignore their incessant whining because they do know what they don’t like.  Unfortunately, the gold nuggets of good design are hidden in those complaints. Listen to users when they explain what they do and then design the best possible interface to accomplish it.  Users are not designers and they should not design systems.

3.       Users are Idiots: Make no assumptions of any actual business knowledge.  Most of the drones simply do the same thing every day without a thought to why. When you change something (anything) they will complain.  They will ALWAYS prefer the old way, even if it involved physical pain. Expect this reaction, no matter the change. Just because users initially hate something, does not mean it is actually bad. Focus on making the task simple and the interface intuitive. If you accomplish these goals, your design will easily fit into their daily task and will soon become indispensable. 

4.       Users are Idiots: Never forget, we are all users. We all want systems that solve OUR problems without any real regard for the bigger picture.  This focus blinds us to the needs of other users.  Keep this in mind when you find yourself on the other side of the UX discussion. 

The purpose of this post is to define the role of a user in the system / UX design process.  I used a certain amount of hyperbole to make   my point, but with the growth of Agile development, a huge emphasis has been placed on receiving feedback from users as part of the development cycle.  It is important to keep a perspective on the type of feedback that is appropriate.  I have been part of product demos where users made design decisions.  This is a sure path to creating an piece of useless software to all but those making the suggestions.  

The user is critical to defining what it is they need to do; it is up to the designer to best define how to do it.