“You are not the user!!!”- Really ?

I have spent the majority of my design career designing for B2B products. My audience have mostly been skilled engineers who are expected to be tech savvy. After spending a considerable time with these B2B products, I wanted to answer a question on the back of my mind - Is it okay to consider myself a possible user for the products and design stuffs that I would like in the product ?

“You are not the user”, I now prefer to think that these words by Don Norman were supposed to tackle the problem of False-consensus effect. The false-consensus effect refers to people’s tendency to assume that others share their beliefs and will behave similarly in a given context.

I was really captivated by the phrase — “You are not the user”-in the initial stages of my design career. I used to completely exclude myself from the target audience and rely totally on the user-research insights.

I learnt through experience 2 things

The B2B companies recruit people from all walks of life with different backgrounds. The product you develop might not necessary be always used by tech-savvy Audio Engineer. It could be used by an Engineer who still writes his to-do list on a piece of paper and stick it on the monitor. It could be used a complete amateur who is using the product you designed on his first day at job. As a general rule, its better to design for both Noob and Nerd.

If all features in a product were to be a subset of the requirements explicitly mentioned by the target audience, then where are we leaving the room for creativity. Pull up to refresh, Long press on a touch screen button, 3D touch etc are all examples of creative thinking which have become a main-stay in todays world.

So maybe, I AM a user.. So are you :)

Thank you for reading.

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