… and User Design.

Yes, that’s it: what are the input, the specifications product Designers have, to do their job?

And what are the Users’ product characteristics they want to pay for?

Users’, or Customers’ dissatisfaction is a fact, a phenomenon that continuously grows.

But, do Buyers really know what they buy, and they pay for?

Products – and services – are more and more “grey boxes”, and “black boxes”, too.

Buyers, Consumers, are lured by the product, or service, appearance, but they very seldom know what there’s really in it, let alone the potential or real side effects.

This holds true for any kind of product or service that comes to anyone’s mind.

While Designers have a “user target” in mind, Users seldom have a product target in their heads: a proof is that very often Consumers buy discounted prices, less and less masked by product or service, on which they lean.

< I don’t think I really need or want it, but it’s so nice and the discounted price is so low … > is what  most Consumers think of mass products and services.

Let’s just think of cruises – be they on bus or ship – or of winter vacation resorts for retired people and couples. It costs less to them to pay for the ticket than to live at home. But then, the real problems come. Because money is money, and no-one will serve you Champagne when you paid for water. Give Caesar what’s Caesar’s.

This is what I mean by “designing Users”.

Of course, Business is greedy for selling and cash, but Business doesn’t seem to be well aware of the risks it incurs – or could incur – in.

If “business is business”, in a World where Information travels at light-speed, it takes a second to dismantle what was before an apparent robust Organization. And Consumers are usually very vengeful when mistreated.

So, as I’ve often been reminded, it’s better for any Business “to take it easy, and not to be too strict”.

Which means not to look for profit, only.

Any Consumer, any User, any Buyer can be fooled, but he’s not a fool himself.

Or herself? Women seem to be more careful buyers, but when it comes to fashion items … they miserably fall.

Males seem to be more attentive to technical characteristics, to performance, but when we look at what has become the male buyers’ market, it’s a severe contradiction.

So, there we are: product and service designers know their “chicken” much better than the “chicken” buyers know themselves. Designers know what they want, what they aim to, Buyers much more rarely – and less.

If I’ve been clear up to now, it’s evident that who pays for the purchase runs much more risks than who designs and sells. Though even the latter is not risk-exempt: there will always be some wise buyer who will put at stake a seller’s or designer’s reputation.

ISO 9000 Principle no. 8 on Partnership between Buyer and Supplier, or Seller, is utopia.

One of my former bosses emphasized that between Salesmen and Technicians there can be no agreement, no peace, one will always do his best to overtake the other: just the same as between Sellers and Buyers.

It does not look a peaceful scenario, however real it is.

Therefore, both Armies should better be well aware of the risks of the battles they run into.