On 12 February 2012 19:04, Oliver Keyes <okeyes(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Indeed; do love your blog :). Thank you for reminding
me of that post - I
was about to spend an hour writing a frustrating post of my own about how
people shouldn't base decisions on how *they* think a mass of other people
would feel. This has precluded that ;p.
The actual phenomenon is called the Typical Mind Fallacy:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/
http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Typical_mind_fallacy
It's why nerd-designed interfaces are so LEGENDARILY AWFUL, and why
engineers are reliably shocked when they see what actual (not
theoretical) users do when put in front of their stuff.
Generalising from one example is better than generalising from no
examples ... but not better than doing actual usability testing.
- d.