Cameron Slade - QA Testing of Developer Tools

Comment removed at user's request.
With his line of:
Alan Cooper wrote:The thing is that the users don’t know, you can’t get blood from a stone, users are got a good source of software, you’ve got to have software built by experts, and you’ve got to have software designed by experts. Software is too complicated and too big and too costly and too difficult to let users have anything to do with it.
Alan has nearly reached the level of being one of my heros.
Now... when he writes a book that I agree with to the point that I do as Atlas Shrugged... then he may achieve full hero status... until then... wow!
I must also remember not to utter such a line near one of my bosses or one of my internal (non expert) customers for fear of getting axed.
staceyw wrote:Much of that was crazy talk. Some was right. Thing is, you can't go to a user after a year of work and only then see if works for them. Isn't that the kind of thing people are moving away from for that exact reason?
Shark_M wrote:I disagree on some of his points. I mean you need customers to tell you what they want. Isnt The Product Feed back and the interaction of the customers and the developer division at Microsoft there to get ideas of what the customers want?
scobleizer wrote:Yeah, that was shot inside our conference center. Building 33.
Oh, Alan knows me very well. He asked me to turn off the camera so that he could have a private conversation with me.
He is a God in my eyes, though. Having conversations with him after conferences is always interesting.
The problem with this video is it is a bit out of context. You need to hear Alan's whole schtick to understand what he means when he says you shouldn't let customers design things.
He's absolutely right, by the way.
scobleizer wrote:I disagree with you. Customers don't know what they want.
Did you know you wanted an iPod before you saw it?
The best design is done when you actually just study what users are doing.
But, Alan's comments are a bit out of context.
To learn more about what he means (and how he designs) I highly suggest reading some of his books on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cooper
Zeo wrote:I've always wanted to know more about the patterns and practice group at Microsoft.
I've read many of their white papers and prescriptive guidance papers but I've always wondered about who exactly makes up the group (are they all deep CS PHD research candidates?) because they seem to publish scary smart stuff that has really great technical breath and depth.The video didn't answer that question so much it highlighted one of the group's core principles of giving real world guidance about deep technical engineering issues.
Karim wrote:
Most customers don't know what they want. Quote: "THE USERS DON'T KNOW!!!" What they do know, usually, is how to describe a problem they have: "Searching Outlook takes too long." "I have too many icons on my desktop." etc.
It's like the broken arm analogy -- when you go to the Doctor, you don't say, "Write me a prescription for X." That would be assuming that YOU KNOW what you want. Instead, you go to the Doctor and you say, "It hurts when I do this." Then you let the Doctor -- the expert -- decide how to fix the problem.
One is imperative: Give me what I want!
The other is declarative: Here is the problem I am having.
Doctors and designers both have to be good listeners at first, not to understand what the user "wants" as a solution -- but to understand the problem.
It's Where do you want to go today? Not How do you want to get there?
To the extent that end users do really know what they want, it's probably just refinement of an existing solution.
Great video, C9 Team...
Hi Zeo -
|
I'm a product manager in the p&p team - wow, glad you like the stuff we're producing! We're a pretty diverse team (in both experience and culture), but the overwhelming majority of us have spend considerable time working out in the "real world" on enterprise
customer projects.
We also try very hard to be transparent in our processes and to participate in community forums - it's very important that we're grounded in reality, and we need customers help to do this! If you want to find out more about our team, our blogs are a great place
to start - see
https://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/Comm/TeamBlogs/default.aspx. We are also involved in GotDotNet community sites and we do webcasts and events as often as we can - so hopefully some of us will cross paths with you eventually
Thanks again for your support
Tom Hollander
https://blogs.msdn.com/tomholl
Shark_M wrote:Yeah but you should give the doctor a feed back as to what is the best way to heal your injured arm. A doctor could solve the problem just by giving you pain killers, that would stop the "Complaining", and the problem would appear as gone for you. But the arm is still broken! Or a doctor might just solve it by amputating it, instead of healing the broken bone! SO the expert can only present "Possibilities" or spectrum of possibilites to the customer, and let the cusomter choose which possibility or option to go about and producing a solution to the posted problem. This has a basis in the Scientific Theory itself. You have to get feedback to know what is the best answer to the problem.
Shark_M wrote:
There are many expert companies that produced solutions, that would work and all, but they did not work well for the intended people....
Shark_M wrote:The Information Technology sector is growing, more and more people are becomming mini-experts on computers, and they know alot than before. So what if 80% of the end users are experts, would you not want to tell them how a tool was made, or what would be a good way to go about producing a solution? Option A or Option B?
Shark_M wrote:
I mean when you did a project for some customer, dont you first have an outline of the project, and show the pathway to getting the project done to the customer?
Shark_M wrote:
Customers should be shown and asked "What is best for you. If i place a TreeView or aListview, or a radio button, or a check mark".
Karim wrote:
Once I'm at the point where I can describe the problem in my own words, the customer's eyes light up and they go "Yes! Finally, someone who understands the problem."
I'm assuming this guy uses an Operating System?
Did he build that Operating System? (I doubt it, there are very few people who will go to the effort to build a custom operating system.)
Therefore, he is a user, am I not correct?
So his analogy therefore implies that he is a five year old kid, as far as using this Operating System is concerned, correct?
So... what would his take be on this - does he believe that he should have any input in the building of this Operating System?
This post is an open question, not meant to imply anything.
ohgood wrote:Users should never see the code, or _others_ should never see the code ?
Hasn't anyone learned that exposing things to other people is a great way to get perspective ? It almost seems as though the subject's view is that the coder is above all inputs, and cannot be wrong. I'll agree that users have their place, as do marketers, executives, etc, but exposing code to more eyes can ONLY make it better.
Shark_M wrote:
scobleizer wrote:I disagree with you. Customers don't know what they want.
Did you know you wanted an iPod before you saw it?
The best design is done when you actually just study what users are doing.
But, Alan's comments are a bit out of context.
To learn more about what he means (and how he designs) I highly suggest reading some of his books on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cooper
There is a saying "Need Is the mother of all inventions"
People needed to listen to music, on a portable device. So a given company that made a "Solution" to fit the need of the people. But they still asked what would be good, small size thing that you can fit into your pocket, or a bigger size device that you can fit into your school bag. People said , They wanted a small device that is convenient and would play all mp3 music files they wanted. Smaller is cool!
I say that, if some company just made its own solution, and did not talk to people or show them prototypes, or got feedback on the usability of the product, and how its best to achieve the solution, then that company would likely fail. Alot of companies failed because of that. Good Design process comes from constant feed back and corrections that come from the people the devices are intended for.
On his example with kids in school, I think if the teachers talked to the students, on what would acheive order and common understanding the classes would be more ordered and more mature. You achieve results faster and in more efficient ways.
my 2 cents
scobleizer wrote:I disagree with you. Customers don't know what they want.
Did you know you wanted an iPod before you saw it?
scobleizer wrote:
Did you know you wanted an iPod before you saw it?
Excellent video. It has been a long time since Channel 9 has had a video of the caliber (IMHO)
The guy is a monster. [6] I did not get any closure though and I thought it was very rude the way he ended the video. But what the heck, If anybody has the right to do that is him.
Great Job Scoble!
Zeo wrote:I'm not familair with the Access history he spoke about, anyone know more about what exactly took place?