Most software companies ignore user behavior

Not just software developers. I was working on a medical device and visited doctors&#x27; offices to see how and where they stored their medication (e.g. for how could we make our dispenser more prominent without getting in the way?). We also filmed our investigators holding various prototype devices to see how they picked them up, how they were balanced, how they felt in small and large hands etc.<p>Universally we were told that nobody had ever asked them anything like that before.

Most software developers ignore user behavior.<p>It was a bit of a shock for me to figure out that much of my early success in software boiled down to a few things I was doing that nobody else was, and one of those was watching other people work and doing something - anything - more with that information than simply writing it down or complaining about it. Most of those people have been coworkers, not even customers.

I don&#x27;t doubt that this kind of invasive data collection can help developers at some point. But as a user I&#x27;m glad that most of the software I&#x27;m using doesn&#x27;t track everything I do (or even register me as a distinct user at all). I&#x27;m also willing to accept poorer software quality in return (which curiously, isn&#x27;t the case).

Having worked on user data before, I think the issue is that for complex software, it’s hard to get value&#x2F;insight from this data. Imagine if you are Microsoft and had every action every Excel user makes with office365. Where would you even start to be able to get value out of this data?

Hmm. No mention of privacy issues?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nngroup.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nngroup.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;why-you-only-need-to-test-w...</a>

Not related to the article, but on mobile I can&#x27;t scroll right to see the full table. Rather annoying.

I take some comfort in the fact that as more and more data gets collected about me, Big Sibling will be drowning in so much data that they can&#x27;t possibly make sense of it all. Eventually an nearly infinite amount of analysis will conclude that I am boring actually as boring as was initially estimated. That said, I&#x27;d be pleased with less monitoring of myself.

I&#x27;m working on an app and trying to be conscientious about my user&#x27;s behavior, but it&#x27;s proving to be extremely time consuming for the value I get out.<p>The problem for me is I can take a relatively accurate guess and achieve 90%+ of what the user is looking for. That last 10% takes a ton of time to figure out. For every moment I spend on the 10%, I&#x27;m only getting a fractional return compared to simply moving onto another feature.<p>Maybe in the future, I&#x27;ll come back and figure things out, but for now it&#x27;s just not worth my time.

I would love to know which features of my app are used and by how many user. But this clashes with my requirement to not have any server side service or telemetry.

In my view, too many software companies have adopted the horrid practices that marketers like this guy have been inflicting on us.<p>We don&#x27;t need more of this.

Love to add a column to one of the most critical tables in my system every time I add a feature. Galaxy brain stuff here.