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Don't do what your users tell you:
There is almost always a root cause for what your users are saying. ... When you listen to what your users are telling you instead of what they're saying, you have the opportunity to incorporate improvements that still fit into your vision of your product....Just watching someone play my game and see them learn from their mistakes was an incredible experience.
Note:
• the power of direct, face-to-face customer observation
• paying attention to what users do rather than what they say
• customer needs are different from feature requests
I mostly agree with this: most users don't have the vocabulary to ask for what they need, so they ask for what they think they want. They use terms from spreadsheet programs they've used, or offline processes, or random marketing terms they've heard.
But there are cases where they're asking for a feature they desperately need right away, and they either can't do their jobs or have do fairly complex or time-wasting workarounds. They may even ask for functionality that a competing program has, which can seem like checklist-comparisons, but sometimes is an immediate need.
The trick is to tell the difference.
Couldn't agree more. We recommend that these calls focus on both broad questioning upfront to uncover what problems you have generally and probing ones at the end that ask why. We call these NIHITO calls by the way as Nothing Important Happens In The Office! Even for the desperately requested feature, it pays dividends to dig further. Imagine if Apple hadn't asked why MP3 players were hard to use and focused only on the iPod device vs. adding iTunes as well to solve the biggest problem ... downloading music.