It was a merely post for reflection on probably the biggest lack of basic understanding I have encountered in my professional life, and encounter every day. In here it is extreme, we are so few, but the problem permeates everything I witness. Software development, running restaurants, politics, journalism, friendships, everything.
That's why I'm so happy to work closely with UX specialists who are weekly and constantly in dialogue with the industry and large and constantly new representatives of either customers/users or people who completely reject all or part of the product. I've seen products developed and debated internally that seemed foolproof and functionally ridiculously simple be completely rejected in the world as incomprehensible and unappealing. It had to be completely redone, and with basic input from collaborators and "enemies" it got significantly better. It is just a professionalism with full contact with and in the front line, and where all illusions and projects' bullshit dies. Literally, dies.
The most important thing I have to say about this is that it is information you have to "pull out" of the world. Work for, pay for, humbly and patiently. You can't expect dissatisfied users to provide feedback. Certainly not commercial ones. The number one reason to fail in the medium and long term is not to SELL. Number two is NOT to seek knowledge far and wide.
Funnily enough, our biggest success UI-wise is that we pulled tons of visual noise and features out of one of our brand new products (compared to similar ones). Nobody gave a rats ass about them. Technical debt of competitors that made their products heavy in maintenance and use, and made them incomprehensible. And it was precisely constant dialogue with stakeholders and potential users (and even near-hostiles) that gave us the liberating knowledge of what features could be omitted. Some comes back on request maybe, but basically we avoided implementing all the competitors' mistakes and features. The things we implemented on request in the first year of the product's life are completely mundane things. We got much, much, much wiser about exactly which workflows are critical and need to be simple, and how much is simply not used and not critical to the product being chosen. Even if you don't understand it yourself, even with years of experience.
Well, the point was, in short, remember this image:
