Most people that are heavily involved in IT, in writing systems, in websites, in development are at least to some extent geeky. We like tech. We think it’s funky. Show us a Devil Duck USB gadget or some precariously stackable lamps and we’ll lust after them until we finally can afford to get them. Similarly, we ache for Powerbooks and similar shiny tech. We love to hack things, to understand how they work to get the most out of them. We treasure little tips and tricks and efficient use of systems (even though they eat away our lives). We all have terminal cases of NADD.
All this makes us perfect for playing with new tech. We want to understand it, to use it, to make the most of it. We live through the frustrations, spend hours making things elegant, efficient, pretty, packing in features as if there’s no tomorrow. If we can have it, we want it all-singing, all-dancing, with bells on. The inventor of the Swiss army knife was definitely one of us.
We are, however, crap “average” users and crap at developing for them and selling to them. We can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t want or need all the extra functionality we can think of. Why they might just want to do the task a simple, easy to learn and remember way (yes, command line whores, I’m looking at you 
). That advances in user-friendliness and usability in those core areas is immensely more important than all the cool things we can think to add to the system. But the worst impact of our very nature is when we are trying to roll a product out, to sell it to the users. Because we are geeks.
Because we are geeks, we assume that people will buy something just because it’s cool, or funky, or has great new features, allows you to calculate how much of your time you spend getting stupid statistics about how you spend your time. Normal people don’t buy things because they’re funky — not systematically anyway. Geeks don’t even buy normal mugs — they all have to have clever slogans.
So why do non-geeks buy things? And how do we adapt to sell to them better? I’d love people’s thoughts on this.
May 6th, 2004 at 3:25 PM
Bah! That means I’m not a proper geek then. My work mug says “Happy Father’s Day” an has my older son’s hand print on it. It never goes in the washing machine and no-one else drinks from it (on pain of death).
(But then I can count up to 31 on the fingers of one hand, so I suppose I’m not completely average yet.)
Why do non-geeks buy things? Because they meet a need, same as with geeks. It’s just that non-geeks have different needs (fortunately, otherwise 75% of the UK economy would be in coffee and pizza production). Geeks needs are often for toys, particularly complex, hackable etc. toys that present an intellectual challenge.
Non-geeks needs? Errrr that’s rather huge, but’s it’s generally NOT complex hackable toys.
May 7th, 2004 at 4:52 AM
Links4Me
Because We Are Geeks [via Simon ] Disrupting the News Industry - webcast of UC Berkeley Journalism panel I missed, but I’m listening now Switching from Movable Type - WordPress is listed as a competitor, and Eric Meyer has switched Rich Internet Applicati
May 7th, 2004 at 7:41 AM
when it coems down to softare, you ask them. Sometimes I think that Microsoft’s great discovery was the usability lab, a way for geeks to notice — to be forced to notice — what ungeeks want from software which always turns out to be stuff that the geek cannot imagine. The trouble is that we tend to think the difficulty is all one way: that it is hard to figure out how something works when we only know how it looks. In fact, as any software designer will tell you, it’s almost as hard to tell how something looks to the ignornant when we understand how it works. But it is the ignorant for whom it should be designed.
May 7th, 2004 at 4:41 PM
Let me get this straight. You’re asking the folks who read your blog (who are a bunch of geeks, given the content of your blog) to tell you “why … non-geeks buy things”? Aren’t you looking in the wrong place?
Seriously, this is what market research firms are for. We can theorize all day about why Aunt Millie has 300 beanie babies and is still buying more, but the only way to find out is to ask the Aunt Millies.
May 7th, 2004 at 9:01 PM
I don’t want to try ursurping a phrase, but a friend recently told me of a common phrase in her mountain biking club, and I think it fits for a lot of geeks.
We all have G.A.S. — Gear Acquisition Syndrome. The need to get more stuff.
May 8th, 2004 at 7:37 PM
u a GEEK??
What I get from it is that GEEKS are those who’ve been fascinated by technology just be…
Via Simon, Meri Williams has keyed a great post which goes by the name Because We Are Geeks, in which she tells what sets GEEKS & Rest of the World apart.
May 9th, 2004 at 11:31 AM
I’ll add to that. Theres GAS, and then theres MMS
Make More Stuff. I think thats a sign of a geek. He likes to make his own Website, his own string handling function, his own geekys stuff.
I have M.A.S
May 10th, 2004 at 3:52 AM
What makes a geek?
Meri Williams asks (via Simon Incutio) why some of us are attracted to technology for its own sake. There are a lot of potential answers, but I think that the real answer goes deeper than that: it’s the search for real, hard knowledge. Not that coffee mug
May 11th, 2004 at 3:49 PM
Actually, if you want to know why the two sides think differently and how to overcome that in your products, read Alan Cooper’s excellent book, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum[0].
He lays out an incredibly simple “persona” system for designing products that is very logical, even to an admitted geek like me. If you read this book and really understand it, you’ll never look at design the same way again.
[0] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672316498/102-8247511-7713769?v=glance
May 13th, 2004 at 8:05 AM
Not everyone reading this site is a geek I’ll have you know! and not everyone working in IT is either…some of us just want to be able to translate between ‘average’ users and developers. It’s bloody difficult sometimes but possible. To understand how to develop for non-geeks you need to get one of those rare people who can see what tech can do for organisations and consumers but isn’t sidetracked by extra features etc. Like me!