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I think the two of you are mostly in agreement. I believe mikecane is talking about someone that believes their mental model of users' needs, desires, and expe
by furyofantares 14y ago
I think the two of you are mostly in agreement. I believe mikecane is talking about someone that believes their mental model of users' needs, desires, and expectations is complete, and is using the question as a way to shut down a feature, with the implication being "if the reason someone might want X is not immediately obvious to me, it must not exist."
I don't think he was talking about someone that acknowledges that their understanding of users is incomplete and wants to learn more.
- Livven 14y agoThat's how I understood it too, and I completely agree with it.
- mikecane 14y agoYes. As an example, Jobs putting actual typefaces into the original Mac. Anyone used to the existing computing paradigm back then would have asked, "Why would a user want that?" Another infamous example is the marketeers at CompuServe thinking the CB Simulator was a bad idea -- and today we have something like it, called Twitter.
- temp8675309 14y agoWhy is Twitter a good idea? It's clearly an idea that's achieved traction with a userbase, but what is it about Twitter that makes it a "good" idea?
- mikecane 14y agoPeople like to chat with other people in real time. CompuServe's CB Simulator was a huge money draw for them (back then you paid per minute of connect-time).