[geocar]

> Why not?

Because users are dumb.

I watch them make bad decisions all the time; they want to put a box of 60 categories here in the left nav of the page; they want to have a drop-down menu for every department in the hospital. "Asking" ten users how a user-interface should work, and you'll get ten incompatible and stupid answers.

The trick to using users to get good UI is to have a programmer watch them try a prototype (or using paper prototypes). Of course, the programmer has to be tied to a chair and have his mouth duct-tape'd closed so he doesn't try and help, but the fact is when he sees the "inputs", he'll optimize the layout correctly to suit them. Programmers make fine user-interface designers when they're properly motivated.

[thmz]

You shouldn't ask users how the UI should be. You have to listen to there needs. Then you have to translate this 'democratic' information into a UI design.

When a user wants a drop-down for every department in the hospital you could translate this into "I want to select a department as easy and quickly as possible".

[cakeface]

Listening to someones needs and then deciding what is best for them is not democratic at all. I think that you are really stretching here.

[nitrogen]

I don't normally comment on grammar, but you've made this mistake in both of your posts: "there needs" should be "their needs". "There" indicates a place, "their" is a possessive pronoun. It's common to also confuse those two homophones with "they're", a contraction of "they" and "are". Getting those straight makes one's writing more intelligible (and more native-sounding if it's being written by a non-native user of English).

Otherwise, I agree with what you're saying about letting users "design" the UI without actually asking them to design a UI.

[iamdave]

I think you should take it one step further and along with listen to their needs, put them in front of a computer, and WATCH what they're doing. Find out what their quirks are, how they expect the software to work and build on that.

[natrius]

"Because users are dumb."

Ignorance is not stupidity. I agree that asking users to make UI decisions isn't the best approach, but calling users dumb because they can't use your software is dumb.