

Steve Jobs’ Unfortunate Contribution to Product Development - Pasanpr
http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/steve-jobs-unfortunate-contribution-to-product-development

======
duopixel
At the risk of sounding lukewarm on the issue, I think that user-centered
approaches to product development are appropriate for some cases, and creator-
centric approaches are appropriate for others.

Apple probably worked on the iPhone a couple of years before releasing it. If
they had done user testing they might have compromised their lead on the
development of touch devices.

In response, Nokia used to be open about design & development, using a blog to
communicate with their users and gauging their response to certain features.
We all know where that ended up.

I agree most ideas should be validated before attempting them, but when you
have deep knowledge about the industry you're in, you can pinpoint specific
pain points without doing market validation.

The approach encouraged by Lean et al is a bit naive. Out of politeness,
people will often say that your product is great. Others won't make any mental
effort into trying your product, and will click aimlessly just to try to
please you.

I don't advocate big methodological approaches but just sitting down for
coffee and demo-ing your product to poorly chosen people does more harm than
it helps.

