Steve Jobs Hated User Research. Here’s Why I Agree With Him.

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses why product managers (PMs) should focus on writing tickets for engineers rather than relying on user research. It argues that users are often overconfident in their predictions and feedback, which is not useful for product development. The article cites research on the overconfidence effect and the Dunning-Kruger effect to support this view, and suggests that PMs should prioritize fixing bugs and improving the core user experience rather than constantly pivoting based on user interviews.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Why the article argues PMs should focus on writing tickets rather than user research

• The article argues that user research is often not useful because users are overconfident in their predictions and feedback, which are typically inaccurate
• It cites research on the overconfidence effect and Dunning-Kruger effect to show that people, including users, are bad at understanding their own needs and behaviors
• The article suggests that PMs should instead focus on identifying requirements, writing tickets, and prioritizing core user experience improvements like fixing bugs, rather than constantly changing the product based on user interviews

[02] Key reasons why the article considers user research to be ineffective

• Users are not technologists and don't have the expertise to provide valuable feedback on UI/UX design and product features
• Users tend to make confident but false predictions about their future behavior and needs
• User interviews often just elicit uninformed guesses from users rather than meaningful insights
• The article cites examples like the failure of New Coke to show that traditional consumer research is flawed and prone to uncovering falsehoods rather than truths

[03] The article's view on the role of PMs

• PMs should focus on their primary responsibility of writing tickets and requirements for the engineering team, rather than spending too much time on user research
• In resource-constrained teams, PMs need to pick up the slack and document the work for engineers, rather than expecting engineers to do this
• The article argues that "user research" is often just a lightly structured conversation that takes time away from supporting the engineering team

[04] The article's perspective on Steve Jobs and Henry Ford's views

• The article agrees with the quotes from Steve Jobs and Henry Ford that users don't always know what they want, and that companies should focus on delivering what users will want, even if they can't articulate it
• It suggests that this supports the idea that PMs should prioritize improving the core user experience through bug fixes and performance improvements, rather than constantly changing the product based on user interviews

[05] The article's overall recommendation

• PMs should spend more time writing tickets and requirements for engineers, and less time on qualitative user research
• Companies should hire dedicated, professional user researchers to conduct quantitative usability testing and observation, rather than relying on PMs and designers to do informal user interviews
• Engineers should skip listening to user interviews, as the insights are unlikely to be useful