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Working as a designer, I've come to appreciate a lot of the ideas in Non Violent Communication. This is more or less the central idea of NVC: needs are very low

Working as a designer, I've come to appreciate a lot of the ideas in Non Violent Communication. This is more or less the central idea of NVC: needs are very low level and highly likely to be shared by many people, whereas the strategies used to fulfil those needs are much more specialized and particular to a person or a small number of people. People will communicate and confront you with their strategies for fulfilling the need they have rather than communicating the need itself. Learning to "listen for needs" is not only valuable for conflict resolution, but also for service development.

grandalf 10y ago
This is very true. I'm going to read the NVC book after reading your comment. Similarly, I've found that users often express all sorts of suggestions for how to accomplish some need they have. While many of their ideas are (from a UX/design standpoint) horrible, the core need is valid and often highlight something important that has been misunderstood or overlooked by the design. The hardest people to get "needs" information from are intelligent, computer-literate people, who are often unwilling to admit that they find something counter-intuitive, and often frame their feedback in a way that conceals that fact... But who will end up not using something because of the friction that a suboptimal design causes. I've also found it helpful to let people draw mocks of their solutions with a sharpie and to also share my own impromptu sharpie mocks with them based on their feedback. At the very least, this process makes them feel respected and lower their guard which can often help them share information that is helpful in designing a product. The craziest moments are when it turns out after weeks of trying to understand a user's feedback, that the user simply wanted a report view of some information and was trying to give feedback to make an interaction design turn into a report. This is quite common, especially in a feedback group where the highest status person is the manager who does actually need a report but is offering general feedback on general usability.
atopiler 10y ago
That's a fantastic analogy!

grandalf 10y ago

This is very true. I'm going to read the NVC book after reading your comment. Similarly, I've found that users often express all sorts of suggestions for how to accomplish some need they have. While many of their ideas are (from a UX/design standpoint) horrible, the core need is valid and often highlight something important that has been misunderstood or overlooked by the design. The hardest people to get "needs" information from are intelligent, computer-literate people, who are often unwilling to admit that they find something counter-intuitive, and often frame their feedback in a way that conceals that fact... But who will end up not using something because of the friction that a suboptimal design causes. I've also found it helpful to let people draw mocks of their solutions with a sharpie and to also share my own impromptu sharpie mocks with them based on their feedback. At the very least, this process makes them feel respected and lower their guard which can often help them share information that is helpful in designing a product. The craziest moments are when it turns out after weeks of trying to understand a user's feedback, that the user simply wanted a report view of some information and was trying to give feedback to make an interaction design turn into a report. This is quite common, especially in a feedback group where the highest status person is the manager who does actually need a report but is offering general feedback on general usability.

atopiler 10y ago

That's a fantastic analogy!