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http://blog.donews.com/keso/archive/2007/07/05/1182818.aspx

Jakob Nielsen的可用性第一准则，就是不要听用户的。建硕很早之前也追问道：喜欢有之，还是喜欢用之。苹果的乔布斯相信，用户的需求不是他自己发现的，而是你替他发现的。在iPod出来之前，没人知道自己需要一个iPod。

跟着用户的抱怨跑，死了都不知道是怎么死的。用户，因为他是用户，抱怨是他的权利。世上没有完美的事物，所以不可能没有抱怨。

有人开发个产品，处处听用户的，惟恐得罪了用户，惟恐做出来用户不喜欢，所以每增加一个特性，都要问问用户，网站改改版，也要做用户调查。如果用户都成了你的产品经理，还要你做什么？如果你不能比用户更深刻地理解你的产品，还要你做什么？

Google也搞用户调查，比如Google Talk的新功能投票。但你千万别认为这是Google拿不定主意，所以征求用户的意见。实际上，Google所列出的那些新功能，我相信都会出现在Google Talk的未来版本中，只不过他们需要确定一个优先级。

豆瓣每次网站做些小变动，总会有用户大声反对，要死要活的都有。但结果呢？迄今还没出过人命，而用户对某些功能的访问率明显提高了。因为杨勃相信数据，相信用户怎么做比他们怎么说更本质。

一件有创造性的工作，在很大程度上不是满足用户已有的需求，而是创造尚不存在的需求。你怎么可能指望用户对自己尚未意识到的需求，提供有价值的看法呢？李彦宏曾经问：谁说了算？在百度，当然是PM说了算。网民说了算？别扯了。

现在Twitter面对大量克隆产品的竞争，所以一定会面临来自用户的要求增加功能的压力。听不听？是个大问题。从来没有坏产品，只有不称职的产品经理。

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晚上戴着墨镜 发表于2007-07-05 9:42 AM  IP: 222.66.200.*

相信keso的意思并不是全不听用户，是选择性的听取，筛选的意思，PM在此发挥这个选取和筛选的功能并集合对产品更好的理解来设计，就好象举的那个google的例子似的——Google也搞用户调查，新功能还是会在未来版本中，只不过他们需要确定一个优先级。
用户其实不会去想这个产品还有什么新功能就好了，他们是被动的，只要新功能是好的，他们就会接受。这样说是不是指用户就没有需求了？当然不是，基本的需求，每个产品都必须有，如果基础都做不好，小学时老师就教育我们说，房子地基打不好，是造不高的，一样的道理。

passby 发表于2007-07-05 9:47 AM  IP: 221.130.253.*

用户会说很多，这就需要PM的判断，从中选择有价值的结论。
不是说用户抱怨的产品就不推给他们，而是选择他们能接受的方式推给他们。这才是用户研究的意义。
PM及团队的小群体体验终究敌不过万千大众用户。
苹果的产品多是精英群体追捧的对象。
选择精英路线还是大众路线？不同的思路也会有不同的选择。

TiMeZz 发表于2007-07-05 11:09 AM  IP: 210.22.158.*

1st：你断章取义了Jakob Nielsen的话，相反JN是最注重用户习惯的人，但是他以数据说话，大量的数据，这是西方人的习惯。我们的习惯？自己的主观臆断，典型的就是keso你本人（btw：本人是JN的忠诚fans，他的研究方法我很欣赏）
2nd：新功能推出时用户可能有抱怨，但是分很多种，比较正常的是新功能改变了一些用户习惯，但是这对之后的使用是有好处的，这种抱怨显然不应该去理会，反而需要坚持；另一些不好的就是完全不顾用户感受进行修改，以至于失去用户。如何分辨这些抱怨？请看看自己做了些什么就知道：为用户着想的，最重还会赢得用户。而不是你keso一刀切说的：不要听用户的。
3rd：你误解了创造性和可用性的关系。最优秀的创造就是让人一看就知道是什么并且拍案叫绝。人是懒的，人的一大特性就是不愿意改变，大多数人都不高兴改变已经work的习惯，即使改变的成本很低。创造性与可用性并不矛盾，在符合用户可用性习惯的前提下做出有创造性的东西，这才是真正的大牛，“不要听用户的”只会加大risk，并不是你发挥创造性而不顾用户习惯的借口。

zoujing（qiezi） 发表于2007-07-05 11:30 AM  IP: 221.221.154.*

片面。
对于做产品来说，还是得参考用户的建议，毕竟产品是做给用户使用的。当然，我也完全同意产品引导用户使用，但是另一方面，用户引导产品的细节完善。
所以，产品经理对于要将产品发展到什么程度，自己得有一个比较坚定的想法，想好了就去做，但是对于具体的实施，怎么样能够使用户用起来更顺手，用户的建议就尤为重要了。

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Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, August 5, 2001: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010805.html

First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users

Summary:
To design an easy-to-use interface, pay attention to what users do, not what they say. Self-reported claims are unreliable, as are user speculations about future behavior.

In past years, the greatest usability barrier was the preponderance of cool design. Most projects were ruled by usability opponents who preferred complexity over simplicity. As a result, billions of dollars were wasted on flashy designs that were difficult to use.

One of the main advantages of the “dot-bomb” downturn is that cool design has suffered a severe set back. Companies are now focused on the bottom line:

• Public websites, which formerly focused on building awareness, now aim at making it easy for customers to do business.
• Intranets are similarly refocused on improving employee productivity. Many companies are attempting to create order, impose design standards, and enhance navigation on previously chaotic intranets.

Happily, glamour-based design has lost and usability advocates have won the first and hardest victory: Companies are now paying attention to usability needs.

Unfortunately, winning a battle with usability opponents doesn’t win the war with complexity. It simply moves us to a new front line: The battle is now to get companies to do usability right.

Watch Users Work

Too frequently, I hear about companies basing their designs on user input obtained through misguided methods. A typical example? Create a few alternative designs, show them to a group of users, and ask which one they prefer. Wrong. If the users have not actually tried to use the designs, they’ll base their comments on surface features. Such input often contrasts strongly with feedback based on real use.

For example: A spinning logo might look pretty cool if you don’t need to accomplish anything on the page. Another example is the drop-down menu. Users always love the idea: finally a standard user interface widget that they understand and that stays the same on every page. However, while they offer users a sense of power over the design, drop-down menus often have low usability and either confuse users or lead them to unintended parts of the site.

To discover which designs work best, watch users as they attempt to perform tasks with the user interface. This method is so simple that many people overlook it, assuming that there must be something more to usability testing. Of course, there are many ways to watch and many tricks to running an optimal user test or field study. But ultimately, the way to get user data boils down to the basic rules of usability:

• Watch what people actually do.
• Do not believe what people say they do.
• Definitely don’t believe what people predict they may do in the future.

Say, for example, that 50% of survey respondents claim they would buy more from e-commerce sites that offer 3D product views. Does this mean you should rush to implement 3D on your site? No. It means that 3D sounds cool. The world is littered with failed businesses that banked on people’s attitude toward hypothetical products and services. In speculative surveys, people are simply guessing how they might act or which features they’ll like; it doesn’t meant they’ll actually use or like them in real life.

When and How to Listen

When should you collect preference data from users? Only after they have used a design and have a real feeling for how well it supports them. Jonathan Levy and I analyzed data from 113 pairwise comparisons of user interfaces designed to support the same task and found a 0.44 correlation between users’ measured performance and their stated preference. The more a design supports users in easily and efficiently doing what they want to do, the more they like the design. Very understandable.

However, when collecting preference data, you must take human nature into account. When talking about past behavior, users self-reported data is typically three steps removed from the truth:

• In answering questions (particularly in a focus group), people bend the truth to be closer to what they think you want to hear or what’s socially acceptable.
• In telling you what they do, people are really telling you what they remember doing. Human memory is very fallible, especially regarding the small details that are crucial for interface design. Users cannot remember some details at all, such as interface elements that they didn’t see.
• In reporting what they do remember, people rationalize their behavior. Countless times I have heard statements like “I would have seen the button if it had been bigger.” Maybe. All we know is that the user didn’t see the button.

Finally, you must consider how and when to solicit feedback. Although it might be tempting to simply post a survey online, you’re unlikely to get reliable input (if you get any at all). Users who see the survey and fill it out before they’ve used the site will offer irrelevant answers. Users who see the survey after they’ve used the site will most likely leave without answering the questions. One question that does work well in a website survey is “Why are you visiting our site today?” This question goes to users’ motivation and they can answer it as soon as they arrive.

Your best bet in soliciting reliable feedback is to have a captive audience: Conduct formal testing and ask users to fill out a survey at the end. With techniques like paper prototyping, you can test designs and question users without implementing a thing. Following these basic usability rules and methods will help you ensure that your design is truly as cool as it looks.

Learn More

Report with 230 Tips and Tricks for a Better Usability Test

Full-day tutorial on user testing at the User Experience 2007 conference in Las Vegas and Barcelona.

Intensive in-house three-day workshop on user testing for your team is another learning option, where we test your own design as the case study for the seminar.