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Really, developers ignore every demographic that they aren't a part of. There's a reason "suits" are often at the head of large creative focused corporations a

by soup10 14y ago

Really, developers ignore every demographic that they aren't a part of. There's a reason "suits" are often at the head of large creative focused corporations and compromise artistic integrity to make things more palatable to their target markets. Market research and knowledge is a very real thing that product focused developers often completely ignore or rely on instincts of unknown quality.

trevmckendrick 14y ago
I think this is a condition of most humans, not just developers. When you pitch a product idea to someone many will come back with "but who would buy that?" when it turns out, there's TONS of stuff me, you, and my mom would never buy... that literally thousands of other people would.
gwern 14y ago
> Really, developers ignore every demographic that they aren't a part of. Unfortunately, that is not really a meaningful thing to say as a guide to behavior: it's like suggesting that someone sell non-apples - meaningful, not wrong, and useless advice. You need to know what demographics developers aren't before that can be useful; you need to know, say, that developers tend to be male, white/Asian, First Worlders, before you can say 'ah, females may be underserved!' And you need to think of the categories in the first place, like this religion example shows. If someone asks you if developers might tend to not be fans of religion than the general population, it might seem obvious, but 'being atheists' is not the most salient feature of developers.
ako 14y ago
The book "design is how it works" has some great examples of how successful companies started, and got their design right. It is often a case of: scratching your own itch. Developers should become part of other demographics, so they start to feel other people's itches. Understanding the itch is the best way to create the right product.

by soup10 14y ago

trevmckendrick 14y ago

I think this is a condition of most humans, not just developers. When you pitch a product idea to someone many will come back with "but who would buy that?" when it turns out, there's TONS of stuff me, you, and my mom would never buy... that literally thousands of other people would.

gwern 14y ago

> Really, developers ignore every demographic that they aren't a part of. Unfortunately, that is not really a meaningful thing to say as a guide to behavior: it's like suggesting that someone sell non-apples - meaningful, not wrong, and useless advice. You need to know what demographics developers aren't before that can be useful; you need to know, say, that developers tend to be male, white/Asian, First Worlders, before you can say 'ah, females may be underserved!' And you need to think of the categories in the first place, like this religion example shows. If someone asks you if developers might tend to not be fans of religion than the general population, it might seem obvious, but 'being atheists' is not the most salient feature of developers.

ako 14y ago

The book "design is how it works" has some great examples of how successful companies started, and got their design right. It is often a case of: scratching your own itch. Developers should become part of other demographics, so they start to feel other people's itches. Understanding the itch is the best way to create the right product.