Don’t Be Knowledge Obsessed – Think Like a New User

It’s not uncommon in any occupation to find that there are certain unwritten rules – assumptions about things which no one questions. However, the technology field is a bit different than most industries. Its heroes are disruptors, pioneers, radical thinkers, culture-creators, and a great many self-proclaimed skeptics. For skeptics, a guiding principle should be to question the most basic assumptions. Ironically, there is a common assumption that is sabotaging digital development: being knowledge obsessed.

Knowledge obsessed

The attitude that is ubiquitous in tech and almost universally overlooked today – sometimes known as Epistemophilia – is certainly not new. However, it is prevalent in our technology-driven society. Genius physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton spent the last part of his life chasing the knowledge that would turn lead into gold. Not too long ago, this obsession was more commonly known as being a “nerd.” Now, the nerds are heroes. Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple have been household names for over a decade. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Elon Musk of Telsa will likely be just as well known in the coming decade. Today, there is an entire class of professionals called “knowledge workers.” Many of them are falling victim to the expectation that we have to outsmart everyone to be successful – the competition, the users, even the authorities.

Outsmarting others for the wrong reasons

Stories pepper the news – this problem is poisoning this generation’s leading tech companies. Uber’s Greyball program was developed to deliberately deceive police officers and city officials.¹ Wells Fargo employees were pressured to open fraudulent accounts – which could be done in only a few clicks.² Facebook provided Cambridge Analytica with 87 million users’ personal information without obtaining proper consent.³ Amazingly, this hasn’t deterred some from taking knowledge-worship to an absurd extreme. For instance, take Anthony Levandowski’s Way of the Future, a church founded on creating and worshipping Artificial Intelligence.⁴

Be empathetic, not clever

These scandals are by no means the only ways in which knowledge-worship is negatively affecting our sanity. Though this attitude may be more subtle (and less illegal) in most company cultures, it is still a roadblock. It runs counter to the number one goal claimed by every tech company out there: creating value for users. How should we get past this? We should be championing the ability to empathize with others over the desire to outsmart everyone.

A frequent source of confusion in the development process stems from our failure to empathize. Developers, user experience professionals, and marketers are all notorious for needing to be the smartest people in the room. Unfortunately, they also routinely neglect empathy.

Alan Cooper – pioneer of user personas – realized this fifteen years ago. In his 2004 book The Inmates are Running the Asylum, he observed that when most professionals talk about “the user” they are thinking of an “elastic user” they can stretch to fit almost any description. They change it whenever convenient, from an “accommodating, computer-literate power user” to an “obliging, naive, first-time user.” What they should be doing is considering a person who really exists.

Unfortunately, the problem has only gotten worse. Much of the frustration and breakdown in development comes from technology workers’ inability to gain the perspective of the end-user. Many products and websites are ostensibly created for people who need information at critical times and make critical decisions. The inability to put ourselves in their shoes leads to a breakdown in serving them what they need in a way they can access and understand it.

Humility as a path to empathy

In light of this, I think the best pathway to empathy is through humility – making ourselves lesser in order to appreciate what others deal with. It’s not easy to do this when we’re hooked into a never-ending stream of personalized entertainment, news, and social media, shopping, dining, clothing. The culture is fast becoming over-specialized. It makes us feel as though each one of us is the center of the universe. On the surface, getting everything we think we want is gratifying. But, it is also terribly isolating.

Author Tim Ferriss says in The 4-Hour Workweek that a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.

Ferris also cites the Roman Stoic Cato’s habit of deliberately wearing unfashionable clothing to condition himself to ridicule and distinguish between criticism that was superficial versus that which was crucial.⁵

We have to unplug from our personalized gratification media stream and step outside of our comfort zone. We have to admit that we simply don’t know everything. It shakes us out of obsessing over knowing everything when there are so many unknowns. Other people care about stuff we’ve never even experienced. Part of what makes us human is to realize that what others think is important is important, too.

Some practical ways to be more empathetic

What is a practical, every day way that we can learn to empathize a bit more? Do something every day that we are unused to but which is commonplace for others. Try it for a week. Try it for a month. Or one day a week. Or one week a month. Just get out there and try these:

• Offer to share a ride with a coworker.
• Stop by a coffee shop you seldom visit this week.
• Ask someone you otherwise seldom talk with how their day is going (and take a few minutes to genuinely listen to the response).
• Take a different route to work.
• Visit a news website you would never otherwise read and try to understand the people who read them all the time (maybe avoid the extreme partisan stuff if it only makes you angry).
• Jump on the main page of Wikipedia and look for the first article about something you’ve never heard of. Read the article in full.
• Listen to a band you’ve never heard of.
• Try a restaurant you never have before.

All of these require us to think more broadly and encounter the unknown. They help us remember we are not the center of the universe. They help us think like a brand new user.

Here’s the funny thing about these exercises for the know-it-alls among us: while we are learning empathy, we will also be expanding our knowledge.

1. nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html
2. money.cnn.com/2018/09/07/news/companies/wells-fargo-scandal-two-years/index.html
3. businessinsider.com/biggest-tech-scandals-2018-11
4. wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion
5. tim.blog/2012/10/09/stoicism-for-modern-stresses-5-lessons-from-cato