There is a lie that Apple started in the Tech World and it has now reached ridiculous proportions. The lie was - "The user doesn't know what it wants."
The commercial success of Apple products probably convinced the tech world of the truth of the statement.
BUT, the graveyard of user content based platforms should tell us the exact opposite. These platforms decided to create engagement modes based on their own understanding, tailored the feed to suit their business needs, and generally, forgot to ask the user.
When we design algorithms that learn purely from user behaviour and forget to ask the user, we are basically propagating the myth - the user doesn't know.
Well, here is the new theory - the average user is a reasonably intelligent person who DOES know what they want.
So please change your algorithms to include a module - ASK THE USER. And surprise! You might find a bunch of really intelligent people telling you what you should be doing right and how. They will tell you what they really want to see on your product, what their pain areas are, and how they really want to engage with people they know.
I think this is also relevant for designing enterprise applications (in fact, I have been a huge votary of keeping the end user in the design discussions) - Don't just ask the business process owner. Ask the user.
The commercial success of Apple products probably convinced the tech world of the truth of the statement.
BUT, the graveyard of user content based platforms should tell us the exact opposite. These platforms decided to create engagement modes based on their own understanding, tailored the feed to suit their business needs, and generally, forgot to ask the user.
When we design algorithms that learn purely from user behaviour and forget to ask the user, we are basically propagating the myth - the user doesn't know.
Well, here is the new theory - the average user is a reasonably intelligent person who DOES know what they want.
So please change your algorithms to include a module - ASK THE USER. And surprise! You might find a bunch of really intelligent people telling you what you should be doing right and how. They will tell you what they really want to see on your product, what their pain areas are, and how they really want to engage with people they know.
I think this is also relevant for designing enterprise applications (in fact, I have been a huge votary of keeping the end user in the design discussions) - Don't just ask the business process owner. Ask the user.
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