When I first started to lead the workforce management business at BlueCube Software, it seemed that we had gotten into the habit of designing product features without interacting much with real users.  We relied heavily on the opinions of people in the office.  This often led to features that ‘worked as designed’, and might even meet customers’ written requirements, but did not work for the end user.

According to Wikipedia, the phrase ‘think outside the box’ originates from the ‘nine dot’ puzzle. The challenge is to connect all nine dots with four straight lines without lifting the pencil from the paper.  The only way to do this is to draw lines outside the confines of the square defined by the dots themselves.

We developed a mantra, “Think outside the Cube.”  We were not going to solve certain design problems within the confines of our workspace.  We needed literally to get out of the building to find the best solution.  Fortunately, our users were large retail and hospitality chains.  Getting to a user often involved simply heading to the local Blockbuster.

While initially resistant, once developers observed real users using their system, it often transformed their approach to development.   Instead of being pushed to get in front of users, they sought out the opportunity to review a business process for improvement, or test drive a new design.    Since then, Agile development, customer interaction and collaboration are more the rule than the exception.

I’m convinced that a large percentage of software developers – for software companies as well as large IT departments – do not interact with users anywhere near as much as they should.

Get into the field to gather requirements, but also to test drive ideas and watch people try to use your product or prototype.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Tags: Software Development, User Interaction

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Innovation, Software Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.