There's this super cool thing tech companies use to decide what products to build. They ask people "would you use this?" and then use synthesis techniques to interpret the answer as "yes" no matter what it actually was.
This is called "validation" and you can make six figures doing it for a living.
This is called "validation" and you can make six figures doing it for a living.
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And one reason why I left tech.
👍🫡
Do you actually, honestly believe that tech companies actually ask people “would you use this?”
They don’t do that. Trust me.
Usually what really happens is some executive meets an investor who believes, baselessly, that people want to use something.
Then they make me build it 💀
“What’s the real use ca—“
“Shut up. He is offering a 50 million dollar investment if we build it, so you are going to build it no matter what.”
This is what it’s really like working in tech
Oh we do.
“Conducting user research” means absolutely fuck all to most executives once they speak to a handful of investors.
We live in capitalism. Money = power.
User research is usually mostly just for show.
They know it's bullshit, they know it's a bubble.
I watched this tip post XP SP3.
Before that, Windows was all about what you needed to add and configure.
Now it is all about the bloat you need to remove, the services you need to disable, the functions you turn off.
"Evaluation" should be an objective process to methodically assess proposed solutions and gather data to guide a decision about whether or not they are valid.
Identifying bias is a real job.
Sounds affirmative, right? They said it's useful?
Well no, they actually said the opposite:
- I won't use it
- I don't know anyone who would use it
- But I can make up a guy who might?
Of course it's negative! Were you not paying attention?
"I like it" doesn't count for shit. You're not a shitpost collecting likes. You're trying to sell a product.
"It's great, there's nothing wrong with it" is even worse. Nothing is perfect! But they didn't think about how they'd use it
THIS is real validation. Mfer is bought in to the concept. They're just nitpicking.
People are able to acclimate to horrible interfaces just to get to something useful. It doesn't mean horrible interfaces should be kept.
But the experience as a whole is shit
Is corporate marketing interested in exploring a reboot of the application? Hell, no.
SMH.
Thanks for the follow-up.
Take a break for your own sanity 🙂