[jacquesm]

That's a little gem in there 'we design for ourselves'. If you build stuff that you yourself would not use then you're on the wrong track, because you will be your own most critical customer and when you are happy then chances are that lots of other people will also be happy with what you have created.

[jsonscripter]

That totally depends, though. If you're designing general computing or consumer goods, fine. If you're designing a custom point of sale program for a particular industry, that statement clearly doesn't apply.

[jacquesm]

That's absolutely true, that was not what I had in mind.

Websites, gadgets, consumer goods, the stuff that you interact with on a daily basis, the kind of stuff that apple produces.

Effectively that is the crux of the 'we don't do market research', if you are your own consumer then you can get away with that. As soon as you are selling to people that will use the stuff you build and you yourself will never use it you are going to have to do very much your best in order to make sure that your customer is happy because you can no longer look in to their head.

[coliveira]

That is why Apple decided to design high tech products, as everyone with this vision should do.