🧠🧑‍💻 PROGRAMMER CONSENSUS BIAS: when your team agrees… and users still struggle

🔸 TL;DR

Dev consensus can lie. Users don’t think like programmers. Watch users attempt real tasks, and you’ll see the friction, the hidden assumptions, and the gap between what they say and what they need.

🔸 WHAT IS “PROGRAMMER CONSENSUS BIAS”?

When devs (and sometimes PMs) agree on what feels “obvious”… because it’s obvious to devs.

We share the same mental models, vocabulary, shortcuts, and assumptions — and we mistake that for “user intuition”. 😅

🔸 USERS DON’T THINK LIKE PROGRAMMERS

▪️ They don’t see “flows”, “states”, “edge cases”

▪️ They don’t read labels like we do

▪️ They don’t explore UIs to “understand the system”

▪️ They want the fastest path to their goal 🎯

🔸 THE SIMPLE FIX: WATCH A USER DO THE TASK

Not a survey. Not a meeting. Not another internal debate.

▪️ Ask them to “do X” (keep it goal-based, not click-by-click)

▪️ Stay silent and observe 👀

▪️ Ask “what are you trying to do now?” when they pause

▪️ Note where they hesitate, misclick, or give up

🔸 YOU’LL LEARN 3 GOLD THINGS FAST

▪️ Where the user is stuck → what to redesign ✅

▪️ What the user says vs what they actually want → real needs 🧩

▪️ How “clear” your UI is outside the dev bubble → true clarity 🔍

🔸 1 HOUR OF OBSERVATION > 1 HOUR OF GUESSING

▪️ Guessing feels productive 🤹‍♂️

▪️ Watching a user is productive 📈

One hour observing real behavior can save days of building “the wrong fix”.

🔸 TAKEAWAYS

▪️ “Obvious” is often just “obvious to devs”

▪️ Prefer goal-based user observation over internal debates

▪️ Redesign based on observed friction, not team confidence

▪️ Validate assumptions early: 1 hour can save weeks

#ux #productdesign #softwareengineering #developers #userresearch #productmanagement #ui #designthinking #buildtherightthing #customerexperience