Faster Horses? How to Uncover What Your Users Really Want

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

This Henry Ford quote* often gets cited as evidence that user research is overrated; people don’t know what they want, so why bother even talking to them?

But let’s think about that for a second.

Were people living in the pre-automobile world idiots for not being able to articulate their desire for a reasonably priced combustion-engine-on-wheels? Something they’ve never seen, heard about or experienced? Or is it idiotic to expect people to be able to describe a future they aren’t even aware could exist?

Needs are where the truth is found

Ask people what they want, and they’ll use the language and concepts available to them – faster horses, cheaper feed, more comfortable saddles, smoother carriages.

Their words are anchored in the world around them, but the needs underneath are where truth is found and where genuine innovation starts.

Separating this signal from the noise is not the job of user research participants. It’s ours as researchers, analysts, innovators, strategists,designers and business leaders. Users surface problems based on their experience and we make sense of these in the wider context, translating them into realistic solution concepts which we test again to confirm our findings.

There are of course examples of entrepreneurs who seemingly take a different path. But are the successes of Mr Ford, Mr Jobs and Mr Musk down to their desire to ignore public demands? Or is their ability to understand the unspoken needs of people fundamental to their success?

Understanding your users starts with effective discovery

Effective discovery is carefully and intentionally designed to uncover truthful insight, not merely record observations, without becoming a drag on the wider design and delivery process.

Effective discovery considers the right questions, asked at the right time, in the right way, to the right people, with their answers interpreted in the right way.

It mixes multiple methods – primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative, generative and evaluative – to check and double-check its findings.

It chooses pragmatism over perfectionism – just enough to get going, accelerating progress not gatekeeping it, and avoiding ‘analysis paralysis’ at all costs.

And, most crucially, it seeks to understand the needs and wants of all stakeholders – customers, front-line staff, senior managers, decision-makers, budget-holders, partners, suppliers, users and potential future users – maximising adoption rates and benefit realisation.

What you can do differently

The simplest way to improve your discovery process and better understand user needs is just to ask better questions. Instead of asking someone “what features do you want?”, “what requirements do you have?” or “what would you like the future to be like?”, try asking:

• What are you trying to achieve?
• What makes things hard today?
• What happens when things go wrong?
• Where have you seen something interesting?

And then, get to work! Pick apart the answers to find the insights. Turn insights into hypotheses. The ‘faster horse’ they are asking for might just be a mobility problem and that mobility problem might just be solved by one of those combustion-engines-on-wheels.

So, in short, talk to your users. But ask better questions. Use more dynamic research methods. Listen more carefully. Then make sense of what was said, what wasn’t, and what was truly meant. That’s the real art of discovery. That’s the true value of user research.

Lessons for intelligent automation solution design

The key benefit of modern modular AI, low-code and automaton technology is the speed at which solutions can be launched. But the wrong thing quicker, is still wrong.

At Robiquity, we are at the forefront of how to embed user-centred design principles and direct user insight into solution design and development, without getting caught in an infinite loop of user testing.

Want the best of both worlds in your next solution design process? Let’s talk – get in touch with us today for an initial, no obligations conversation.

*Fun fact: There is no evidence that Henry Ford ever said the infamous ‘faster horses’ line. The closest he came was in his autobiography ‘My Life and Work’ in which he said: “The public will ask for what it thinks it wants.” Different words. Same meaning. No horses.‍