I have been a fan and advocate of customer research in interactive product development for many years .

For us product designers and marketers, knowing what customers want and need can be highly inspirational and often a well deserved kick in the butt. And both (inspiration and kicks in the butt) are triggers of innovation. Real insight can  help us making bolder product decisions, moving from the realm of redesigns to the one of innovations.

When I’m totally comfortable with this argument the famous phrase from Henry Ford kicks in to disarm me: ‘If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” I usually stammer something about good moderators and the wise use of data in response. But I have lacked some punchy response to this so far.

But Mark Hurst has formulated a very nice one in Exceptions to listening to customers

I’ll quote his last couple of paragraphs:

“… nondirected customer research is applicable, and helpful, when it’s time to create a game-changing new product or service. And it doesn’t require asking customers to invent the thing.

After all, a good lab moderator won’t ask the customer what product they want … rather they’ll simply try to understand the customer’s unmet needs and pain points, so that they can (back at the company) innovate the right solution. Customers, important as they are, are not designers”.

Thanks for the argument, Mark!