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by vwolf 915 days ago
I can attest to that. I had worked on a product for a couple of years and received feedback from our support team, but never seen how the product was used in real life. One time, we had a specific bug that the customers were complaining about, and no matter how they described it, we couldn't figure out what the problem was. That was until I went to one of the customer sites and saw how the users were interacting with the product.

When they tried to demonstrate the bug, it was immediately clear to me what the issue was. That was the first time I really grasped the difference in how we approach software products. It also helped me see how the product could improve their job by watching how the process was in real life. Gave me a lot of ideas on how to make their job easier by using the product.
2 comments
fl7305 915 days ago
Writing GUI applications, there's nothing as valuable as standing behind a user who tries to do something for the first time with my application.

Just seeing the moments of hesitation, how the mouse is moved while searching in menus, etc gives me a lot of information.

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wruza 915 days ago
Watching what and how they do after a month is as valuable. User interfaces have two sides in this regard: initial experience and boring repetition experience. You can optimize for the former, the latter or both.
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fl7305 915 days ago
Good point. My experience is also that most users don't learn many of the neat features I have built in to speed up their work.

Even if I show them a couple of times, it is often quickly forgotten.

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rudasn 915 days ago
> That was the first time I really grasped the difference in how we approach software products.

For me as well. I've started my "career" this way, building something very specific for a client (family member) whilst being on prem and having constant and direct feedback, so that's how it was done I thought.

Almost twenty years later, having worked different roles with teams in office and remotely, I have to remind myself, and others around me, that we are building something to be used by real people with real problems and my/your software must not be one of them.

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