First Rule of Usability?Don‘t Listen to Users

In past years, the greatest usability barrier was the preponderance of cool design. Most projects were ruled by usability opponents who preferred complexity over simplicity. As a result, billions of dollars were wasted on flashy designs that were difficult to use.
One of the main advantages of the "dot-bomb" downturn is that cool design has suffered a severe set back. Companies are now focused on the bottom line: Public websites, which formerly focused on building awareness, now aim at making it easy for customers to do business. Intranets are similarly refocused onimproving employee productivity. Many companies are attempting to create order, impose design standards, and enhance navigation on previously chaotic intranets.
Happily, glamour-based design has lost and usability advocates have won the first and hardest victory: Companies are now paying attention to usability needs.
Unfortunately, winning a battle with usability opponents doesn‘t win the war with complexity. It simply moves us to a new front line: The battle is now to get companies to do usability right.Watch Users Work
Too frequently, I hear about companies basing their designs on user input obtained through misguided methods. A typical example? Create a few alternative designs, show them to a group of users, and ask which one they prefer. Wrong. If the users have not actually tried to use the designs, they‘ll base their comments on surface features. Such input often contrasts strongly with feedback based on real use.
For example: A spinning logo might look pretty cool if you don‘t need to accomplish anything on the page. Another example is the drop-down menu. Users always love the idea: finally a standard user interface widget that they understand and that stays the same on every page. However, while they offer users a sense of power over the design,drop-down menus often have low usability and either confuse users or lead them to unintended parts of the site.
To discover which designs work best, watch users as they attempt to perform tasks with the user interface. This method is so simple that many people overlook it, assuming that there must be something more to usability testing. Of course, there are many ways to watch andmany tricks to running an optimal user test or field study. But ultimately, the way to get user data boils down to the basic rules of usability: Watch what people actually do. Do not believe what people say they do. Definitely don‘t believe what people predict they may do in the future.
Say, for example, that 50% of survey respondents claim they would buy more from e-commerce sites that offer 3D product views. Does this mean you should rush to implement 3D on your site? No. It means that 3D sounds cool. The world is littered with failed businesses that banked on people‘s attitude toward hypothetical products and services. In speculative surveys, people are simply guessing how they might act or which features they‘ll like; it doesn‘t meant they‘ll actually use or like them in real life.When and How to Listen
When should you collect preference data from users? Only after they have used a design and have a real feeling for how well it supports them. Jonathan Levy and I analyzed data from 113 pairwise comparisons of user interfaces designed to support the same task and found a 0.44 correlation between users‘ measured performance and their stated preference. The more a design supports users in easily and efficiently doing what they want to do, the more they like the design. Very understandable.
However, when collecting preference data, you must take human nature into account. When talking about past behavior, users self-reported data is typically three steps removed from the truth: In answering questions (particularly in a focus group), people bend the truth to be closer to what they think you want to hear or what‘s socially acceptable. In telling you what they do, people are really telling you what they remember doing. Human memory is very fallible, especially regarding the small details that are crucial for interface design. Users cannot remember some details at all, such as interface elements that they didn‘t see. In reporting what they do remember, people rationalize their behavior. Countless times I have heard statements like "I would have seen the button if it had been bigger." Maybe. All we know is that the user didn‘t see the button.
Finally, you must consider how and when to solicit feedback. Although it might be tempting to simply post a survey online, you‘re unlikely to get reliable input (if you get any at all). Users who see the survey and fill it out before they‘ve used the site will offer irrelevant answers. Users who see the survey after they‘ve used the site will most likely leave without answering the questions. One question that does work well in a website survey is "Why are you visiting our site today?" This question goes to users‘ motivation and they can answer it as soon as they arrive.
Your best bet in soliciting reliable feedback is to have a captive audience: Conduct formal testing and ask users to fill out a survey at the end. With techniques likepaper prototyping, you can test designs and question users without implementing a thing. Following these basic usability rules and methods will help you ensure that your
design is truly as cool as it looks.
keso的评论：
Jakob Nielsen的可用性第一准则，就是不要听用户的。建硕很早之前也追问道：喜欢有之，还是喜欢用之。苹果的乔布斯相信，用户的需求不是他自己发现的，而是你替他发现的。在iPod出来之前，没人知道自己需要一个iPod。
跟着用户的抱怨跑，死了都不知道是怎么死的。用户，因为他是用户，抱怨是他的权利。世上没有完美的事物，所以不可能没有抱怨。
有人开发个产品，处处听用户的，惟恐得罪了用户，惟恐做出来用户不喜欢，所以每增加一个特性，都要问问用户，网站改改版，也要做用户调查。如果用户都成了你的产品经理，还要你做什么？如果你不能比用户更深刻地理解你的产品，还要你做什么？
Google也搞用户调查，比如Google Talk的新功能投票。但你千万别认为这是Google拿不定主意，所以征求用户的意见。实际上，Google所列出的那些新功能，我相信都会出现在Google Talk的未来版本中，只不过他们需要确定一个优先级。
豆瓣每次网站做些小变动，总会有用户大声反对，要死要活的都有。但结果呢？迄今还没出过人命，而用户对某些功能的访问率明显提高了。因为杨勃相信数据，相信用户怎么做比他们怎么说更本质。
一件有创造性的工作，在很大程度上不是满足用户已有的需求，而是创造尚不存在的需求。你怎么可能指望用户对自己尚未意识到的需求，提供有价值的看法呢？李彦宏曾经问：谁说了算？在百度，当然是PM说了算。网民说了算？别扯了。
现在Twitter面对大量克隆产品的竞争，所以一定会面临来自用户的要求增加功能的压力。听不听？是个大问题。从来没有坏产品，只有不称职的产品经理。
白鸦的评论
1、K总刚写了篇不要听用户的。这个观点虽然看似有一些偏激，但读懂的人会明白其中的道理。
2、”以用户为中心”是指以用户的方式注重用户目标去做产品，但绝不等于”必须要听用户的”。
特别是在做创新设计的时候，用户是告诉不了你他们的真正需求的。
“50年代的时候，在美国问任何一个人，家电设计应是什么样子？所有人都会说，家电必须放在一个柜子里面，必须跟家具是一样的。而日本人却发现，其实家电应该有它自己独特的一个东西，它有金属的外观，很轻巧，很好用。日本人的设计理念，使他们一举占领了市场。这说明，设计师要做一些创新的东西，用户的一些潜在的思维慢慢会被引导“。这是百度联盟第二期郭宇演讲的内容。
3、”以用户为中心”所指的”用户”是”大多数的典型用户”或者说是”产品的目标用户”，而不一定是”跳出来说话的那些用户”，这里包括了老用户也包括新用户。
豆瓣的确在每次的改动都会惹来众多用户的哭爹喊娘，都会说”你们又要商业化了，你们是不是没钱了呀，…”。比如，在书的具体页，原来”我想读”"我在读”"我读过”在右侧，”在那儿买这本书”在左侧书的下面，现在给两者交换了位置。用户的投诉很多，但”我想读”"我在读”"我读过”在新老用户的点击数据都有了大的提高。
一些关于沉默大多数的说法我还是比较赞成的。
4、拿到用户反馈的手段太多太多。真正需要考察产品设计人员能力的不是怎么去拿，而是拿到后怎么去分析和筛选这些反馈，然后得到合理的结论。
和”老婆永远是对的”不同，用户不一定总是对的。
momo现在很不喜欢睡在自己的小床上，总是喜欢睡在妈妈的大床上，因为小床硬大床软；还很不喜欢可以固定他头型的小枕头和盖在肚子上的棉布，因为那样他就不能睡觉的时候乱动了；
可我不可能让他从小就睡那么软的床更不能让他的肚子着凉，所以他必须自己睡自己的小床必须睡觉盖着肚子。
5、我不赞成”完全的以数据为依据”。我不只相信数据库里反应出来的现象，我也不只相信用户告诉我的情况。
数据统计的结果能代表整体的状况，但典型反馈的结果也同样能说明真正的典型问题。数据统计跟用户调研是相辅相成的，缺一不可。
所以，当发现数据有异常的时候，先尝试分析问题所在，然后找用户来搞清楚到底是什么问题、或者去验证你的分析结果是否正确；
当用户告诉你某种你不能肯定的情况时，去想办法看一下数据的反应。
6、每个产品都会有自己的”功能需求库”。
这个库有产品设计人员添加进去的，也有用户提出需求并经过产品设计人员判断以后添加进去的。
库里面的每个项都有自己的优先级和排期，用户的意见只能一部分影响这个排期。
废话说了一箩筐，其实：完全不听用户的不对，完全听用户的也不对。
你说该怎么办？…
其他人的评论：
用户从来都是被维护的，维护中最重要的是沟通，而不是说用户说啥是啥，包括UGC，用户提供的内容是具有参考作用的。但不能够完全决定网站的价值。
但这一结论必须是建立在拥有一个好的产品经理的前提下，否则如果连用户最基本的需求都还没能满足，而不去满足那这个产品必死无疑。
对以技术为向导的互联网企业而言，这番话是没错的，因为你是在创新，用户根本不会对没有的东西发表意见
创新是狂道！当然这种创新也包括业务整合了
听用户的，不是说就是听个别用户的抱怨或者意见。
用户分析是一门科学，用户需求是可以在科学的过程里发掘的。
产品设计者，从来不会直接去问用户产品该怎么做，反而，人类学者更多的是观察用户，引导用户表达出自己真正的感受。
1st：你断章取义了Jakob Nielsen的话，相反JN是最注重用户习惯的人，但是他以数据说话，大量的数据，这是西方人的习惯。我们的习惯？自己的主观臆断，典型的就是keso你本人（btw：本人是JN的忠诚fans，他的研究方法我很欣赏）
2nd：新功能推出时用户可能有抱怨，但是分很多种，比较正常的是新功能改变了一些用户习惯，但是这对之后的使用是有好处的，这种抱怨显然不应该去理会，反而需要坚持；另一些不好的就是完全不顾用户感受进行修改，以至于失去用户。如何分辨这些抱怨？请看看自己做了些什么就知道：为用户着想的，最重还会赢得用户。而不是你keso一刀切说的：不要听用户的。
3rd：你误解了创造性和可用性的关系。最优秀的创造就是让人一看就知道是什么并且拍案叫绝。人是懒的，人的一大特性就是不愿意改变，大多数人都不高兴改变已经work的习惯，即使改变的成本很低。创造性与可用性并不矛盾，在符合用户可用性习惯的前提下做出有创造性的东西，这才是真正的大牛，“不要听用户的”只会加大risk，并不是你发挥创造性而不顾用户习惯的借口。