Does It Work?

Photo by Adam Borkowski on Unsplash

Not far from where I live, there is an intersection where the traffic lights operate in different ways depending on whether you’re walking or driving. 

What I mean by this is that if you’re driving, the lights work as you would expect. They change at specific time intervals in an automated fashion. But if you’re on foot and you want to cross the street, the “walk” sign will not display unless you’ve pressed the manual “change traffic signal” button on your side of the street.

Meaning, the cars themselves will still stop because their signals work automatically, but you won’t see the walk signal unless you press the walk button. (That is, the cars will stop because their signal has turned red, but the pedestrian walk sign will not display - it will still display “Don’t Walk”.)

It’s amazed me for years and many times, if I’m not paying attention, it’s led me to miss my turn to cross.

And I’m hard pressed to understand why this traffic signal system would be designed that way. You’d think if the traffic lights turned red, the pedestrian signal would automatically turn green, and vice versa. 

But for some reason, the designers didn’t implement it that way on this specific intersection. Most likely, whoever did so, didn’t think the implementation of the system all the way through. Or, perhaps the manufacturer didn’t test their system to ensure the functional ‘consumer’ perspective was taken into account. 

Either way, there was a failure to consider all customers and follow through on the product design and implementation. 

Usually this arises when we’re super product-focused - emphasizing features and performance - instead of customer-focused. We’re so enamored by the buttons and bells and whistles that we forget to ask a simple question: 

Does it work?

And by work, I don’t just mean in a purely functional sense, but rather, is it fit-for purpose? Does it work as a system? Are there more or fewer features than necessary? Does this make all of our customers’ lives easier? 

As should be obvious, being customer-focused means we value the outcome (customer delight) more than we do our personal assessment of the product’s quality. We’re willing to forego the bells and whistles to make the outcomes meaningful, simpler, more efficient. Customer focus always trumps a product focus.

So, it’s always worth asking, first and foremost: does it work?