Stop asking your customers which features they want you to build next.
During our days we would send surveys asking our users what new tools they wanted us to add to the platform. We ended up building a reporting dashboard because a dozen vocal customers requested it.
After spending three weeks developing the dashboard only two of those customers actually used it more than once. We learned the way that customers are excellent at identifying their frustrations but terrible, at designing software solutions.
We changed our feedback process to focus entirely on their workflow instead of feature wishlists. Now we only ask them to describe the tedious part of their week or the task that takes them the longest to finish.
This subtle shift gave us a deeper understanding of their underlying problems. We recently built an automated export function based on workflow feedback and it immediately became our most popular feature of the year.
Your job is to design the solution while your customers job's to explain their problem clearly. When you interview users what questions do you ask to discover what they actually need than what they say they want?
Replies
A dozen request don’t always mean a feature is worth building. I’d want to know how often the problem happens and how much it affects the user.
This is a good reminde to validate the problem before committing development time. I’ve found that a clear understanding of user frustration makes the next decision much easier.
Instead of asking which feature someone wants, I’d ask them to walk me through the last time they faced a difficult task. That gives me concrete details to work with and helps me avoid building on assumptions.
Users often ask for features but the real problems they face can be very different from what they say