Finally, the day for the meeting with our friendly department had arrived. Two days ago, Hana had sent me the initial draft of the user interface for me to review and provide feedback. Having worked in this company for many years, I had learned from past painful encounters that when it came to user interface design prototype meetings, it was important to hold something back and not "reveal all your cards" too easily.
The benefit of these types of meetings was that they helped users understand the system's usage and flow better than they would with process diagrams or functional specifications filled with technical jargon, which they were usually not interested in or didn't understand. This made it easier for them to express their real needs. However, this was a double-edged sword, as it also made it easier for them to demand a "perfect IT system." Since most users could only express what was on their minds, they could not distinguish between "actual needs" and "nice-to-have features."
When I first started working on user interface design prototypes in this company, I always tried to achieve perfection by adding all the features I could imagine. However, during meetings with users, I realised that my definition of perfection was vastly different from theirs, and I felt as though we were speaking different languages on different planets, or on different universes. This was the complete opposite of what the famous Hong Kong podcaster Wong Yeung-Tat once had said: "What you can think of, surely I can think of it too."152Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc4lBV90msg
"The things they can think of are things I could never imagine."
As a result, users would say one thing after another in turns, with my ever-so-caring-and-smarter-than-ever department head adding his "It's doable without much extra efforts, no problem" comments, and that was how things went. In the end, with the project timeline and manpower unchanged, I could only catch up with the progress by working overtime and improving efficiency.
After numerous painful lessons, I learned the principle of holding back: don't strive for perfection too early, and leave some "space" for users to express their opinions. This not only prevented me from pushing myself to the edge of a cliff but also allowed me to choose the right time to do them a favour - giving users a sense of "I am willing to take extra steps or sacrifice a little more for them."
This was the experience I gained from working in this company for many years and the "survival skills" that helped me advance to this position. However, when I explained this principle of holding back to Hana and asked her to remove some features that users hadn't requested in the initial requirements gathering process, she didn't seem to understand or accept this approach.
"Why deceive users? Aren't they our important partners?" Hana complained. "Besides, as the wiseman once said, the most important thing is to be honest!"
Honest? She wanna go into the matter of honesty?152Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ566giCUG8I
Explaining what "honesty" meant to someone with a superficial understanding of the business world was a very complicated matter.
"I certainly understand and agree with what you mean by 'being honest,'" I patiently explained. "But please don't misunderstand me. I'm not asking you to deceive users. On the contrary, I hope we can hold something back and wait for a more appropriate time to raise them. We have a very limited time-frame and we cannot do everything in one go. Thus as they are our important partners, we have a greater responsibility to ensure that this project can be completed smoothly and on time."
"No!" She was very firm.
Faced with her stubbornness, I tried to persuade her while quickly brainstorming for a solution. Of course, I could use my status as a superior to force a compromise, but I didn't want to use this method, which could destroy our relationship, unless it was absolutely necessary.
Shit. Bloody Hell. What a hassle.
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