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People don't think! It never occurs to engineers to put themselves in the shoes of the user. Engineers are developing these products in well-lit rooms with HVA

People don't think! It never occurs to engineers to put themselves in the shoes of the user. Engineers are developing these products in well-lit rooms with HVAC and that insulates them from the actual usage environment. I see it all the time and I do what I can to counter it. I've seen the case where I had to caution one of my team members that the product he was coding was going to be used in a dangerous, chaotic environment that was nothing like the quiet, calm office he was demoing it in. And that taking a few seconds to figure out a setting (like he was proposing) could literally be the difference between life and death in actual operation. In safety-critical industries we have FMEAs and UI reviews to prevent usage errors, but in "normal" development? Nope. No one thinks of these problems unless they have specific experience and that 10x dev you just hired may be a C++ genius, but he's never been a firefighter. I'll say it again: people don't think!

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
This is why product managers and or industrial designers exist - someone who either has domain experience or empathizes with a user. I was a PM for a wearable product used on industrial sites. The engineering team suggested a lanyard as an option for the wearable. Anyone who's spent some time on industrial sites knows that lanyard-worn-anything is outright not allowed or highly frowned upon by HSE departments.
IIsi50MHz 3y ago
> It never occurs to engineers to put themselves in the shoes of the user. Or sometimes, they do, but they get overruled by Marketing. Marketing: "Our focus group didn't like the holes on the side or back. Said it looked like ceiling tile. They liked when we mocked it up with holes half as big, though." Engineering: "…That will cook the hard drive, and maybe the CD-ROM drive, too. Those holes are half the dia—" Marketing: "After the warranty?" Engineering: "Maybe. Maybe most of them. We'd have to test." Marketing: "Great! We'll ship with the smaller holes, then."

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago

This is why product managers and or industrial designers exist - someone who either has domain experience or empathizes with a user. I was a PM for a wearable product used on industrial sites. The engineering team suggested a lanyard as an option for the wearable. Anyone who's spent some time on industrial sites knows that lanyard-worn-anything is outright not allowed or highly frowned upon by HSE departments.

IIsi50MHz 3y ago

> It never occurs to engineers to put themselves in the shoes of the user. Or sometimes, they do, but they get overruled by Marketing. Marketing: "Our focus group didn't like the holes on the side or back. Said it looked like ceiling tile. They liked when we mocked it up with holes half as big, though." Engineering: "…That will cook the hard drive, and maybe the CD-ROM drive, too. Those holes are half the dia—" Marketing: "After the warranty?" Engineering: "Maybe. Maybe most of them. We'd have to test." Marketing: "Great! We'll ship with the smaller holes, then."