How to evaluate the impact or satisfaction of users for user-driven design decisions?

Question

One of the progression of user-centric design methodologies is to engage the end-users in design decisions rather than just using them as a feedback mechanism. This is supported by many common tools (e.g. Uservoice or GetSatisfaction) that allow users to provide suggestions/ideas and then for them to be ranked based on popularity (as voted by the users) or other metrics (importance, amount of time or effort required). Once the users provide enough details/requirements/specifications for the product/service to be developed, the company can then build the product with the view that it should basically almost meet the exact user requirements.

However, unlike decisions made based business, technical or even user requirements that are initially based on some degree of research and analysis of users, if the product/service design is based directly on something that the users collectively come up with then how would you have to evaluate user satisfaction to take into account that the users came up with the design? Is this even something that makes sense to do since the users are responsible for the outcome and the company is creating a product/service as a service

Answer 1

If Apple had relied just on asking the customer what they wanted would they have developed the ipod, ipad or iphone?

Henry Ford's oft-quoted saying: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” (Recently saw an article in Harvard business review stating that there is no evidence that Henry Ford actually said this but still an apt quote.)

I'm a firm believer in the user-centric design process but you have to be mindful that the business' goals need to be considered to build stakeholder acceptance of the ideas and concepts created by the IA process.

Therefore, I start with the business goals, mission, aims. Work with the business to establish what success looks like (metrics and KPI if possible). Then devise one or more customer propositions and test these with real customers (card sorting, storyboards and possibly as prototypes, etc.) It soon becomes clear if a business proposition is viable. Once you have the basic proposition then its all about what the customer wants: what tasks they want to complete, how they want to interact with this type of service, their expectations for the service business, their behaviour / mindset when completing a task, what information and data needs to be presented and how and when.