Is the concept of "user needs" a bad idea?

"If I ask my users, they'll just say they want a faster horse." "-Henry Ford (Henry ford,1863-1947), American auto engineer and entrepreneur, http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/7114.html" > Ford Motor Company's founding.

The concept of "user needs" is not a word that someone deliberately coined, and the two words "user" and "demand" are accessible, and they don't need too much explanation to be combined.
The term "user needs" now contains a very broad, fuzzy definition. All users need, user requirements can be called user needs.
In this era of "user value", who has a mouth is "users have this demand ..." This is the user's need AH ~ "Perhaps too much ridicule of the similar statement does not have any positive significance, or because we do not realize the misuse of the" user needs "concept of the harm.

The concept of "user needs" brings two errors:

Wrong one. Try to meet a variety of "user needs", and finally found tune

Often in small, specific functions, we are very concerned about "user needs."

"When I see a tweet, I want to reply, you should have a reply function," said the blogger. "So we should make a reply function?" Is there a user who would like to reply to this reply? So there is a similar "stealth, stealth, stealth to its visible, to its 135 stealth, to its 21 point after the stealth ..." joke. (Joke full text: http://t.qq.com/p/t/47542014125024)

If you understand the concepts of "user goals" and "User Tasks" in Alan Cooper's book, The question of "microblogging response" is easy to solve.
I would like to briefly introduce the concept of "user goal" and "User Task": User goal is the final demand that the user wants to achieve; The user task, in order to achieve the user's goal, has to have the user to do a series of operations. The simpler the user task should be, the better.

For the "microblogging response" example, if we use the "User goals" and "User Tasks" concept, then we can determine that it is not a user goal, but users as users, is the user himself based on past experience to the concept of a task.
The user's goal is to be able to express their views on a certain micro-blog information. How to achieve this user goal, the product designers need to think of ways to do is to do a reply function, can also be another way, the principle is to make the user as easy as possible to achieve the goal. "As easy as possible" of course to include easy to operate, but also to include good understanding, easy to find.

The user says the request usually is not systematic, is remembers what wants what. If the designer of the product simply according to the user's request to do the product, the consequence is ... "stealth, stealth to it, invisible to its visible ..."

According to this "only user needs is from" way to do for a while, the designer will often sigh tune, so it is easy to fall into another error ...

Error two. Think users don't really know what they want

"If I ask my users, they'll just say they want a faster horse." -Henry Ford
"If you only do what you need, there will never be Walkman." "-a lot of the teachers who talk about product planning say that.

Henry Ford only used the general concept of "user needs" to analyze the user, to come to the above aphorism. To ask users, users can say can only be their own thinking, the user said the words directly defined as the user needs, and then make a judgment: User demand is unreliable drop!

Users certainly can't tell Mr. Ford that they need a car. The user said "want a faster horse" should be understood as: User goals are more powerful, efficient transportation. And how to help users achieve this goal, is the product designer to use their brains. Perhaps to produce a car, perhaps to produce a train, perhaps a more powerful horse, perhaps something else. This depends on the product designer's judgment, which product users are more likely to buy, or say, what kind of task to help users achieve goals is the most willing to accept the user.

If Ford is right, then Ford should have used it to invent the car successfully. In fact, the car was not invented by Ford.
Ford's success is not in his use of the "user needs are not able to ask" the wrong reason, this is not the value of the donkey it will wielding.

Let's see how Walkman was born:
One day in the late 70, Sony's big Boss, Morita, saw one of the company's founders, a heavy tape recorder, wearing a pair of headphones, and walked head-on. Sheng Morita feel very strange, ask: "What are you doing?" "Well deep:" I like listening to music, but also afraid of affecting others, so I have to wear headphones. I didn't want to listen in the room, so I had to run around with my recorder. "Sheng Morita was inspired and later designed Walkman."

Source: http://www.chouyu.com.cn/?p=354