In the tech world, customers are frequently not users, and in B2B software, customers are almost never users. I NEVER use the word “customer” interchangeably with “user.” 1
This is true even for a lot of consumer software. For example, I bought my Mac, but not my MacOS. Most of the websites of which I am the user are not ones I paid for, and I cannot be considered their “customer.” 2
When I use the entertainment system on my airline flight, I am the user but certainly not the customer. I wouldn’t pay a nickel for that shit. 3
Most organizations love to pay close attention to their customers, and more attention to the bigger ones. Users are always just a single individual. A powerless cog in a giant business wheel. Interaction designers seeking reality need to work hard to find the real user. 4
Most business people are embarrassed of their users, and don’t want designers to talk to them. though not so of their customers. Customers are a lot like the biz folk who sell them the product, so they are simpatico. Users not so much. 5
Middle managers who buy millions of dollars worth of software are the worst. They crave the clout their budget gives them. 6
They know that they can get the supplier to pay attention to them (often at fancy restaurants), so they make up shit to sound knowledgeable and important. Not all biz folk are like this, of course. Just all of the ones I’ve met. 7
They honestly believe that adding features improves products, so they try to think up cool features. They’re trying to help. 8
But, as a designer, if you take their seemingly innocent request to the dev staff, then it’s all on YOUR head when that feature turns all Frankenstein on you. 9
Sure, the business person is made happy in the short term, but everyone is miserable in the long term. Developers, designers, product managers, users. Particularly users. Can you say “technical debt”? 10
The users are always extra disappointed because not only do they now have to put up with some unwanted crap that always gets in their way, but they know that lots of valuable resources were squandered NOT giving THEM what they really wanted. 11
It’s true that users occasionally want features, but almost always they want the software to present itself and its data and functions in a different way. They want the software’s model to represent the way they think. 12
Customers—the buyers of software—don’t care how the software represents itself because they don’t use it. 13
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t interview customers. It’s actually very important that you pay lots of attention to them. After all, they are politically very important. But for pasta’s sake, don’t imagine that their demands are worth the bits they’re written on. 14
The reductio ad absurdum of this is when design consultants claim to be “customer driven.” You’d be better off paying attention to chicken guts, astrology, or cosmic rays. 15
I’ll say it one more time just to be crystal clear.
The customer is not the user.
Tattoo THAT on your ass!
16
The customer is not the user.
Tattoo THAT on your ass!
16
Also, if you make the real end user happy by giving them what they want, and not the crap they don’t want, the business people will eventually realize that this is good, productivity and morale are up, and the users aren’t whining anymore, so THEY are happy, too. 17
At that point, the business people will loudly take credit for the success. 18
