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your bride-to-be with your house designing and building ability. You're really excited to show her some cool ideas you came up with while you and your buddies watched the Superbowl. You can hardly wait to show her the cool workshop in the basement and the special batting cage built for two in the backyard. When she finally sees the newly completed house you're shocked when all she can say is, "You put a toilet in the living room!?"

The point? If you solicit user input after the concrete is cured and the carpet is laid you're stuck with very costly change requests. You're much better off getting input when the building is still in the drawing phase.

Great Looking Suit?

Only slightly better is the scenario in which designers are only partially committed to delivering what the customer wants. The result is like the old joke about the man who buys a tailored suit. He puts it on and asks his wife, "Well, honey, what do you think?" Unimpressed, she points out the suit's many flaws. The man takes it back to the tailor. "My wife noticed that one shoulder is too high, one leg is too long, and the crotch hangs down to my knees." The tailor has a quick solution. He tells the man to hold one shoulder higher, bend over, hold up the pant leg, and lean to one side as he walks. Voila, a perfectly tailored suit. As the well-dressed man exits the tailor's shop, two men see him walk down the street. "Look at that poor crippled man." "You're right, poor guy, but his suit sure looks good."

When users have to adapt their operations to compensate for your poorly designed user interface you are not committed to delivering customer value in your product. The poorly designed user interface elements that irritate and annoy eventually add up. The user looks forward to something, anything else that comes along. Upon seeing the new product the user should be heard to say, "Yes, that's exactly what I need!" Instead of the more familiar, "What is it?"

What Must Be Done?

Understand your customer and commit to delivering what the customer perceives to be of value. Now be forewarned, there is emotional risk to the engineer soliciting customer feedback-especially when you first start out. This may be why it has been avoided in the past. There is an excellent chance customers will tell you that your baby is ugly. Get over it. Your baby is ugly. You must make it a matter of standard practice to do what Deming and Duran taught the Japanese about effective manufacturing: Introduce the customer into the

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