I know, I owe posts on Mongo and Tornado.  I’ll get there, I promise.

I had a great meeting today, talking with members of a customer demographic for a new piece of software, and they had very specific demands for changes to what I demonstrated.

There’s one trick I’ve learned that I wanted to share, though: when a customer asks for a specific (reasonable, important) feature implemented a specific way, tell them it’s an awesome idea, and then take a step back.  First off, I’m assuming you have some vision for your product- at least a set of ideals and constraints that are guiding your hand.  (if you don’t: stop doing what you’re doing and find them).  Take that feedback and look at it through the lens of your vision: what is the core problem this customer is trying to solve?  How do I best give them that?

The answer might very well be implementing exactly what they ask for.  There are two alternative answers, though: (a) re-imagine their specific demand within your vision, or (b) solve their problem by marginalizing it.  (a) is pretty obvious- something like, “oh, I get it- you want an ‘xyz’ widget feature.  we’ll do that, but we’ll call it ‘abc’, and put it over here.”  (b) is more interesting: some pain points are best addressed by making other features or workflows so smooth and powerful that users forget they ever wanted the feature.

It’s like making problems evaporate, and I think it’s the kung-fu of product design.

(also: actually talk to your customers, and don’t forget to iterate like heck)