Great that they're 'making something people want' but their posts are generally condescending -- stop the incessant chatter and show off this amazing product you've built for 'normal' people that is going to change the world and be uber-profitable.
I'm not implying that what we're doing is going to shake the foundations of the planet, because it won't -- simply relaying what I'm thinking about as we work.
Solid writing though.
- some item - another item - ... - oh yeah, and REALLY IMPORTANT POINT
contains condescension inherently. It says "the last point is the core of my post and is so important that you must know it. See how I faked almost-forgetting-it to clearly show how trivial it is to me. Be thankful that I deigned to hand it down to you instead of just throwing it away."
http://friendfeed.com/e/41230d54-d425-07c8-38a3-4bada029126b
"When designing UX think about what your mom would use, not what Louis Gray would use"
That's probably a good rule. That's not saying build something a geek wouldn't use.
Joe average is going to have a technical person setup his computer- If that technical person, say, makes firefox the default browser, assuming it mostly works, joe average is going to use firefox. This might also be why OSX is doing so much better than previous macOS versions. Whenever a non-technical person asks me for a laptop reccomendation, I tell them to get a mac, in part because I know they might come to me for help (and I'll be damned if I start rooting around in a windows box that isn't properly backed up. Reboot, reboot, then format and reinstall, I say.)
the other side of this is that it needs to work for joe average... this is why Linux on the desktop took so long to take off (it looks like it's getting a toehold in the low-end- by 'just working' for simple tasks) even now, linux on the desktop only 'just works' if you don't need commercial software.
so yeah, you must target the early adoptors, but targeting the early adoptors alone is not enough. You must make it usable for the average person.
(which is funny, because I've put almost zero effort into the usability of my product. I don't have a support budget, so if you don't know UNIX well, eh, for now I'm not the best product for you.)
It's absurd to think that there are no real-world problems which have interesting solutions. To say that you can't understand what more "average" people would find useful is not an assertion of your superior intelligence, just an assertion that you're not particularly perceptive or curious.
OP, however, never mentions the most important thing about this demographic: they just want it to work.
They expect things to work intuitively right out of the box. They don't want to install any add-ons, extensions, or downloads. And they don't want to have to get an education just to try something new.
The gas pedal is always on the right and when you enter a room, flip the toggle switch up to get light.
So why doesn't your web app work like that? If it doesn't work right with the browser and resolution they got when they bought their computer at Office Depot, if they have to wait for Flash, or they don't know what it is, they'll leave and never come back.
This is the 80% in the middle of the bell curve, and they do have money to spend. Pay attention.
20% or so of mobile handsets are returned to the shop. Rarely are they defective but just too difficult to use correctly. (The percentage varies by handset, I can't find the article I learnt this from at the moment)
No, they're people in stock art doing absolutely nothing but standing around and looking stupid.
I usually keep a tab open to summize (my city as search term), and I've been noticing a lot more 'normal' people talking about life as opposed to technology. Also, notice that most of them have less than 100 followers (as opposed to the pied piper Scobelizer-types 5k+ followers and Scobelizer-wannabees 1k+ followers). It would be interesting to see the distribution of followers on Twitter. My hunch is that as Twitter goes more mainstream there will be more normal people (with 20-30 followers).
Though something like 5% of them will click any link in any email that has either "PayPal" or a misspelling of "Viagra" in it and enter their social security number, mother's maiden, credit card number, address, and waist/inseam sizes.
Don't fear the niche, or the early adopter. Today's weird geek toy might be tomorrow's necessity.
If you're young (like me), another way to think of this would be to ask yourself "why would my parents use my product? How can I make it easy and intuitive for them?"
