What users really need

I came across this blog post entitled "What is User Experience Design" by Alla Zollers a PhD student at UCLA in the department of Information Studies. The post is the authors quick overview of user experience design. In reading through it I came to the following section that highlighted exactly what we are trying to achieve with the initiative I highlighted in my previous post, Where do solutions come from?:

... when Henry Ford built his first car, he was quoted as saying “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” A company’s job is not to give users what they want, but to solve problems. The problems that companies are trying to solve are usually social, and so understanding people and how they interact with each other and their environment forms the key understanding and driving force of the product design and direction.

At the core, user experience advocates for the end-user and makes sure to bring the customer’s perspective into the decision making process. In order to achieve this user-centered approach, user experience designers engage in several activities:

• Observe customers in their natural environment to understand how they are currently interacting with existing systems, as well as get insight into how users view the world (their mental models).
• Build empathy and understanding of the customers within the entire product team

The rest of the post goes on to provide more insight into User Experience Design and it's business benefits, but it is the section above that I believe truly explains exactly what we are trying to do.