Over the years, I’ve worked in various customer service roles and, more recently, in e-commerce, where I handled both web development and direct communication with customers. This dual perspective gave me a unique understanding of one core truth: if a product isn’t designed with the user in mind, they simply won’t use it.
Emmett Shear, in his lecture on Talking to Users, emphasizes that observing data alone isn’t enough. You need to engage directly with your users to truly understand their needs, habits, and pain points. I experienced this firsthand in e-commerce. Features or workflows that seemed logical to our development team often didn’t work for the people actually using the site. It was only through conversations with customers listening to their frustrations, their workarounds, and what they truly valued that we could improve the website meaningfully.
One key lesson from Emmett’s talk is that who you talk to is as important as what you ask. In my work, this meant not just speaking to frequent users, but also those who struggled with the site, potential customers who hadn’t yet purchased, and even internal stakeholders who interacted with our systems differently. Each conversation revealed insights that data alone could never show.
Another takeaway is that user interviews shouldn’t focus on features. Instead, they should uncover the underlying problems and goals of the users. I saw this in practice when redesigning parts of our site: customers weren’t asking for flashy new tools they wanted their tasks to be simpler, faster, and more intuitive. By focusing on their needs rather than jumping straight to features, we created solutions that were genuinely useful and adopted widely.
Ultimately, the combination of direct user engagement and practical development experience helped me understand that a product’s success depends on empathy. If you don’t see the world through your user’s eyes, no amount of coding or design will make them adopt your product. Talking to users isn’t just a step in development it’s the foundation for building something people actually want to use.
