Title: User research — what’s tomato ketchup got to do with it?
Context: If Heinz had only asked their customers what they wanted they would have made faster ketchup.
Synopsis: When I was a kid, getting ketchup on your plate was a workout. The condiment came in a solid glass bottle one had to shake and pound and coerce into releasing some of the bright red sauce within. And forget about getting all the way to the bottom of the bottle where there always remained an inaccessible amount you would never, ever be able to access no matter how hard you tried. Then along came a little user research which made obvious what everyone kind of already knew: getting the ketchup out of the bottle was a huge pain. Understanding and knowing are not always arrived at simultaneously, but by clearing the slate and using observation as the driving force behind design decision making, we can help to collapse the gap between the two. Now if someone would help me figure out how to get the last bit of peanut butter out of the jar, we’ll be all set.
Best Bit: “There’s a big difference between observing people using your product and listening to people talking about your product.”
via uxplanet.org
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