3 Ways We Preempt User Needs

The new IE7 has been released, and it looks really cool — minimal interface, glossy, jelly bean design, and most importantly, advanced security features. “We heard you” says Microsoft on their new new IE7 site, but did they really? Besides sounding like, “Ok, enough already, we heard you,” IE7 is a solution that comes a little late for the way I like to meet the needs of my users.

As most of you know, we are currently launching our new app, siteMighty.com, and these past few months have been an amazing education for me. I had some experience with conceptualizing ideas, and polishing interfaces, but this was my first opportunity dealing with users directly. The most important lesson I’ve learned so far has been preemptting needs, and here are three ways we do it:

Be A Butler

Thinking about being a butler, my mind keeps coming back to the movie, Gosford Park. The movie explores the lives of the people living upstairs (the bosses), and those living downstairs (the help). Similarly, our users are our bosses and we are the help. Part of helping means we need to meet the needs of our users even before then know they have a need. To accomplish this, we have to be experts and know our system better than anyone else.