The first website I published was in 1998, when I’d the smart idea of building an “interactive” website in an attempt to win my group bonus marks for coursework.
It took forever to build, and in a true spirit of comradery, the rest of the group left me to it for nights on end.
It did get us a few marks. The hardest earned marks of my life.
But it was rubbish.
On the face of it I’m maybe not the best person to deliver an opinion piece centred upon eyewear, for I’m one of the fortunate ones who, some 37 years on in the world, still hasn’t needed to visit an optician.
I wasn’t the young child who “failed” their eye test and subsequently got wound up by their siblings. I’ve never had reason to memorise the Snellen chart. I wasn’t the 1970s/1980s school kid whose “good glasses” were kept safely at home, replaced in day-to-day life with the brown thick-rimmed NHS badges of dubious honour. I’ve never had to look through my pockets or bags for a chunky glasses case in my “right, have I got everything?” checks.
One of the most celebrated quotes in user research and product development is generally attributed to Henry Ford:
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
I say attributed because a consensus exists among researchers that he didn’t actually say these famous words.
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