People building things often develop more context than their customers.
That context gives them a higher-resolution view of the product, the process, the flaws, and the edge cases. Sometimes that is useful. But often, especially early on, it influences decisions in a direction that is not critical right now.
I am a heritage rail volunteer. I often have discussions with people about the work they’re doing, and they are often quite self-critical.
If you stand half a metre from the front of any train on the network, you will very quickly see imperfections. Stand 10 metres back, and you see only perfection.
Why?
Because the resolution is too high.
You are starting to see things that are not seen from a distance. There is too much context when you are building something.
It’s important to remind yourself of this in any area of life, especially when building things. We can get so caught up in the minutiae that we lose focus of what the customer actually perceives.
Focus on the minutiae leads to complex, detailed features. Because you built it, your resolution is naturally higher. You have had the processing time to develop a thought pattern.
Your users haven’t.
Just like a customer looking at a signal, or the paintwork on a train, they do not see the slightly messy brush strokes or the small imperfections around the edges.
Customers see things at a lower resolution than you, and it is hard to see what they see.
But what your customers want to know is usually much simpler:
Does it solve their problem?
Do they trust it?
Is it worth their time?