nerd@metrocat.org

Sierra is Clueless

Kathy Sierra is at it again: almost as if she’s tuned into my own ranting and raving. Her latest article is about “cluelessness”.

Yes, I recognize that it’s ridiculous to equate “cluelessness” with “beginner’s mind”. Or is it? What if “clueless” is simply a label the glass-half-empty folks give the glass-half-full folks. If we’re optimistic, we must not have a clue. What if we simply see the world through a different lens? A lens that opens doors and windows the cynical and pessimistic are too busy dissing to notice?

I’ve always tried to approach problems from an uninformed perspective. I know that sounds weird. One client (back when I was running my own UI consultancy) asked: “Don’t you want to know anything about our product?” The answer, of course, was No.

No, I don’t really want to know anything about your product, but I want to know everything I can about the problem your users are trying to solve with your product. That’s why it’s so important to meet the users and talk with them myself.

I love to tell the story of my stint as a “Booth Babe” for Primus. In my role as product manager, I joined Primus’ demo team for a major trade show down in San Francisco. My product wasn’t even in Beta yet, so I was the only one actually capable of demoing the product without running the risk of crashing it. For three days, I gave demos for over ten ours each day. By the end, I was totally wiped out: my voice was shot, my feet ached, and I could barely stand.

But I wouldn’t have given up that experience for anything. Almost everyone who saw the product had great ideas to share with me — and the ideas from the clueless were definitely the best of the best. On the last day of the trade show, I had many pages worth of amazingly good ideas. OK, I also had my share of really astoundingly bad ideas too, but you always have to expect that.

Keeping a “beginner’s mind” can be really tough, especially once you’ve started building (or redesigning) the product. But it really is essential to capturing those category redefining questions that only the clueless will ask.