Getting a hair cut is like buying custom software
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Like just about everyone I need to get a hair cut every now and then. No matter how hard I try to slow down the growing of my hair I always find myself sitting in the barber’s chair a month after the last time. And I always get the same unnerving feeling that I have no idea how to explain my needs.
I see lots of people with nice hair all around me: at work, on the streets and in TV. My hair is OK, but it’s not exactly like I’d like it to be. Although I have some ideas on how I’d like my hair to look like, I don’t have the words to explain my ideas to the hair dresser. And because of that the moment when I enter the barber’s shop is always a bit embarrassing. The conversation goes somewhat like this:
- What do you want me to do with your hair this time? She asks.
I think for a while about the image I have inside my head but end up lightly shaking my head and mumbling:
- Let’s do the same as last time. Just… well, just don’t cut too much…
Today, once again thinking about my next visit to the hair dresser it dawned to me: The hair dresser and I are basically in the same business. The business of finding out what people need and delivering it.
Our customers who come to us for software probably feel exactly the same when we ask them the daunting question: “So, what did you have in mind?” as I do at the hair salon.
This brings us back to the question about how we can read our customers’ minds and make them feel comfortable. Maybe what they are missing is a vocabulary. What if instead of asking me what I want the hair dresser would start by suggesting different alternatives by showing photos of different hair cuts and then I could say over and over “not like that, more like this one” and slowly we’d find the solution that best suits me?
I’d love that.
I would feel like I had a say in how I want my hair to look like, but I would also know that my hair became better than I could ever have asked for myself.
That’s what I’d call an approachable way of getting a hair cut.
And I think we can apply the same approach to software development.
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November 29th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Hi.
Good design, who make it?
November 29th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Thanks! It’s my own handicraft. It has still a few things here and there that I’d like to polish when I have time, but otherwise I like it too :)