There’s a strong tendency in product management and user experience circles to want to ensure that the product you ship is “perfect” and that it touches every corner case and every single use case that your customers may need elegantly, efficiently, and with no learning curve.
This is an entirely unrealistic expectation.
The fact is, you’re going to miss some things, no matter how hard you try or how much time you take “ensuring” that your product is perfect. That’s because, even if you involve customers in the development process, even if you iterate repeatedly, and even if you’re the most user-centered team in the world, there’s going to be something you miss, because you’re always operating on incomplete information.
The trick, then, is knowing what risks you’re willing to accept and which you’re not…