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Real discussion about an B2B e-commerce site (summarized):
X: We're going to add a notification indicator to our menu so we can show users that they have notifications.
Y: Do we have anything of which to notify users? I don't think we do. 1/
X: We're going to add a notification indicator to our menu so we can show users that they have notifications.
Y: Do we have anything of which to notify users? I don't think we do. 1/
X: The notifications can be whatever we want.
Y: Yes, but why would we build a feature if we don't know what it's for? Our users won't care and it won't benefit us. It's just work. 2/
Y: Yes, but why would we build a feature if we don't know what it's for? Our users won't care and it won't benefit us. It's just work. 2/
X: We can use it to advertise new website features.
Y: Our entire page is cluttered with stuff that no one cares about. No one ever clicks on this stuff. I have numbers. Why not just put this stuff there? 3/
Y: Our entire page is cluttered with stuff that no one cares about. No one ever clicks on this stuff. I have numbers. Why not just put this stuff there? 3/
X: We can use the notifications to show product promotions.
Y: We're a B2B company. Our customers don't buy stuff because of promotions. We don't have any sort of targeted advertising, and all of our customers buy different things for different reasons. So which products? 4/
Y: We're a B2B company. Our customers don't buy stuff because of promotions. We don't have any sort of targeted advertising, and all of our customers buy different things for different reasons. So which products? 4/
X: Well it's been approved. Our marketing people want this.
Y: When people see a notification pop-up they think it's something meaningful for them or some action they need to take. So we're going to use that to trick our customers into clicking on ads they won't care about? 5/
Y: When people see a notification pop-up they think it's something meaningful for them or some action they need to take. So we're going to use that to trick our customers into clicking on ads they won't care about? 5/
X: You're a developer. From watching TV I know that developers just write code. They don't understand people. We are UX experts. You don't know anything about that. We don't tell you how to write code. Leave UX to us. 6/
Y: You haven't said anything about UX. You've said we're going to build whatever you want. When I tell you that users will be annoyed if you use common visual language to trick them, they'll be annoyed and won't ever click on it again. That's UX. I think I'm the expert. 7/
This is what really goes on. I wonder how many developers spend their days building things that no one needs, wants, or uses. I honestly wish some companies would realize how bad they are at this stuff and just completely outsource it. 8/
Hire someone else to talk to your customers. Hire them to understand what they want. Hire them to build it or to help your team learn how to build it better. Stop throwing money into a black hole. 9/9
