Kathy Sierra on co-creation.

Kathy Sierra makes yet another astute point on her blog this week, this time about co-creation. (Thanks to Francois Gossieaux for the heads-up). In her own words, it's this:

"In this Web 2.0-ish world we're supposed to be all about the users being in control. Where the community drives the product. But the user community can't create art. (And I use art with a lowercase a as in software, books, just about anything we might design and craft.) That's up to us...

"Our users will tell us where the pain is. Our users will drive incremental improvements. But the user community can't do the revolutionary innovation for us. That's up to us."

- Kathy Sierra

There's an important distinction to be made here between a) giving customers a voice and listening to them, and b) turning their feedback into design solutions. Aside from occasional exception, your customers can only steer you in the right direction. They can't actually do the work for you.


Technorati Tags: Kathy Sierra, creativity, innovation, marketing, co-creation, design, Francois Gossieaux, user+control