User Research is not optional: arguing like Socrates will help you prove it
User Research (UR) is essential for building great digital products — yet many leaders like Henry Ford and Steve Jobs said it’s unnecessary. This article reexamines outdated beliefs while making the case for user research using the Socratic Method.
User Research (UR) should be something we all agree on that is critical to building the best digital products. But it’s not, and it seems to get more contentious every year. I’ve had millions of arguments in my career about user research, and I’ve actually argued for and against it.
But now that I’m older and wiser, I’m 100% aligned that user research is critical for product development.
You should be performing User Research for all digital products — new and existing — especially if those products are externally facing with clients, customers, or the general public. Research provides the critical data you need to make informed product decisions around features, usability, and the wants/needs of your target audience.
You’re flying blind without doing any research.
Let’s start by dissecting some old arguments of brilliant innovators who were against doing User Research, and then I’ll share my fool proof argument to help educate and prepare you for the inevitable conversation with leaders who will want to remove User Research to move “faster” and “save money.”
Henry Ford’s argument against user research: revolutionary vs evolutionary products
Henry Ford, the CEO of the Ford Motor Company, guided the production of the Model T car back in 1908 to be the first affordable, easy to operate, and mass-produced car in America. It was an instant success, and Ford often spoke about developing the Model T without research, saying “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
What he was saying is that most people can’t see beyond the products they utilize day-to-day, except the issues they have with them. Customers would likely ask for improvements to existing technology if you ask them about it (i.e. a faster horse) instead of asking for revolutionary new products.
Ford’s argument kinda makes sense, right?
The problem with Ford’s argument is that most of us don’t work on revolutionary new products that ordinary people would have a hard time imagining, let alone understanding.
Most product companies and teams are incrementally improving or evolving current digital products into something slightly better, but rarely working on anything that could be called “revolutionary.” Ford happened to live in an era where everything was revolutionary, so his argument made more sense when he said it in the early 1900’s. There really wasn’t any “technology” prior to that other than the telephone and steam engine, so every invention was considered “revolutionary.”
Even for people who do have incredible jobs that are building extraordinary innovations, there is Design Thinking that will help guide this development with Human Centered Design. They obviously didn’t have this back in the early 1900’s, but it exists today. And it involves lots of user research.
Steve Jobs’ argument against user research: consumers don’t know what they want
The other argument is the famous Steve Jobs quote that “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
This argument also seems pretty straightforward, and is pretty similar to the evolutionary vs revolutionary argument. But the difference here is that this one, is well, uh, utterly idiotic.
Of course people don’t know what you want until you show it to them!
That’s exactly what Agile product development and User Research is for, to quickly show your target audience new product ideas that they hopefully want and need. But to ignore User Research and just launch things into the market blindly is essentially the old Waterfall development method, which left a vast graveyard of failed products in it’s wake.
Most innovation happens within startups, and if you look at the success rate of startups then you’ll realize why innovation is almost impossible without User Research. The fact is 90% of all startups fail, and the #1 reason is because they fail to identify a market for their product and/or service!
That is, startups don’t do enough market or User Research prior to designing, developing, and deploying their product. They dive in, spend a lot of time and money creating a product without talking to users, and then launch it into the market only to watch it fail miserably.
The only argument you need for user research: buying a house
The best way to win arguments about anything is to help people understand it at their level.
For example, it’s a lot easier to prove how extreme the spending is in Congress by simply comparing the federal budget to that of a typical household budget.
This tactic is really valuable, because most of the time you’ll be arguing with a SVP or VP, or maybe even a product manager (PM) who is trying to speed up the process or save money. So you already have an uphill battle trying to prove the value of research.
The argument for User Research is simple, and it makes it even more powerful if you utilize the Socratic method, which is named after the Athenian philosopher Socrates who used simple questions to challenges ideas and beliefs.
Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, X, Neuralink, and Boring Hole) often uses first principles thinking — which is a form of the Socratic method — by breaking problems down into fundamental truths and then reasoning up from there. This has helped to propel him to become one of the premier innovators of the 21st century in electric vehicles, space travel, and AI.
Here’s a simplified view of how to utilize the Socratic Method:
- Wonder: Receive what the other person says, listen to their view or premise.
- Reflect: Sum up the other person’s view and clarify your understanding.
- Refine & Cross Examine: Ask the person to provide evidence that supports their view. Discover the thoughts, assumptions, and facts underlying their beliefs. Challenge these assumptions to test their validity.
- Restate: Note the new assumption resulting from your inquiry.
- Repeat: Start back at the beginning with the new assumptions.
To help illustrate this, imagine your boss is asking you to remove User Research from a project to save time and money, where you’ll start by listening to their perspective and determining their assumptions as to why they would prefer to remove User Research.
Once you’re at Step 3 of the Socratic Method of Redefine and Cross-Examine, you’ll want to challenge their assumptions that User Research is a waste of time and money. Start by asking your boss if they’ve ever lived in house before? Unless you’re reading this from the Amazon rain forest, I’m hoping that 99% of people you’re going to argue with will say yes.
Next, ask them how many houses they’ve lived in? Just an estimate is fine. Again, most people will say 2–3 houses or more.
Continue diving in further, where you’ll ask them “have you ever bought a house before?” Most people have bought at least one house, if not a few in their lifetime.
Then ask them “How did you buy the house? Did you walk up and buy the first house you saw, or did you do some research first on neighborhoods and then look at a lot of houses within a desired neighborhood? Did you use a realtor to help with this research or did you do it all by yourself?”
And once they admit to getting a realtor, this is where you really dig in… “Wait, you told me you’ve lived in houses your entire life and even bought a home before, which means you’re a certifiable expert on houses, so why did you pay a lot of money to hire a realtor? Why not walk up to the first one you saw and just buy it? Seems like you wasted a lot of time and money on a realtor when you could have done it yourself, riiiiiight?”
Hopefully your boss is having an “aha” moment.
They should understand that while our product design and development team is highly experienced, we still need User Researchers to ensure our products meet customer needs while lowering our risk of developing ineffective and/or unusable features.
My final key point in the home buying analogy is that many small and mid-sized companies spend the equivalent of a home purchase ($500,000–$1,000,000) each sprint on product development salaries and overhead. Larger companies like Google invest billions annually in product development!
You wouldn’t risk your life’s savings when buying a house, and so why would companies blindly bet millions or billions every sprint on the chance that their product ideas are successful?
It’s clear that User Research is not up for debate — it’s a foundational practice that ensures digital products are built with purpose, insight, and a clear understanding of your users’ needs. Dismissing it to save time or money is a short-sighted strategy that ultimately leads to wasted resources and failed products.
I’ve always loved the Socratic Method because it provides an invaluable tool in advocating for User Research. By guiding skeptics through their own reasoning — using relatable analogies like buying a house — you can help them realize that research is not an impediment but a catalyst for building better products. Just as no one blindly purchases a home without research and/or a realtor, no company should blindly develop digital products without understanding their users. Always remember the Nielsen Norman formula, UX — U = X, where “X” now means “don’t do it.”
So the next time someone challenges the need for User Research, don’t just argue — utilize the Socratic Method to ask questions, lead them to the logical conclusion, and let them see for themselves why research is not optional.
Ultimately, the companies that invest in User Research are the ones that create products with real impact while saving time and money in the long run by avoiding unnecessary risks.
