Managers don’t care about users. Nor about business results.

Some time ago, a company called us because they “needed an App”. Our research showed that their market had no interest in an App. They thanked us and called an “innovation agency” who made the App for them.

I just checked. After more than 5 years, the App had… just over 100 downloads.

Pablo Escobar was cold. What’s your excuse?

Lessons learned

There are projects that go well, and projects that you learn from. From this one, I learned a lot:

1. Managers don’t care about Business results. Their real priority is to maintain the network of promises that supports them.
   Whether that network is built on results or bullshit, is another matter.
2. Managers are like Dr. House’s patients: they lie.
   Out of ignorance, out of shame, out of whatever, they lie.
   In this case, they didn’t need UX and innovation. They needed an accomplice. It’s a service we at Kambrica don’t offer, so they were right to look for someone else.
3. It is common that before calling us, our clients have already made design decisions, without even knowing that they are design decisions. This led me to study about the subject and build the meeting between UX and Decision Theory. This model has helped me to understand much better the initial situation of our clients and reduce frictions from the beginning.
4. “I was told that to do UX seriously, you have to measure NPS and show the impact on business results”.
   NPS is numerology, Santa Claus doesn’t exist, the Tooth Fairy was just your mom, and managers couldn’t care less about Business results.