Some of this comes down to phrasing. We should both ask and observe (but it has to be the right kind of asking). The asking should be user interviews and conte

Some of this comes down to phrasing. We should both ask and observe (but it has to be the right kind of asking). The asking should be user interviews and contextual inquiry to understand their problems. What are they trying to solve? We shouldn't be asking them to design our products for us, because users often don't know what they want or what they even do. This should typically come very early in the process as foundational work. Observing people both working and in a usability testing setting will help us learn what is and isn't working. As we get into the prototyping stage, it should be a lot more observing and testing. I think what you are responding to is this idea that all we need to do is just talk to our users, and you are correct, that is very wrong. Just asking users what they want is a good way to give them something they won't use. When we do ask people questions, they need to be done in a methodical and probing way.