At the risk of sounding lukewarm on the issue, I think that user-centered approaches to product development are appropriate for some cases, and creator-centric approaches are appropriate for others. Apple probably worked on the iPhone a couple of years before releasing it. If they had done user testing they might have compromised their lead on the development of touch devices.

In response, Nokia used to be open about design & development, using a blog to communicate with their users and gauging their response to certain features. We all know where that ended up.

I agree most ideas should be validated before attempting them, but when you have deep knowledge about the industry you’re in, you can pinpoint specific pain points without doing market validation.

The approach encouraged by Lean et al is a bit naive. Out of politeness, people will often say that your product is great. Others won’t make any mental effort into trying your product, and will click aimlessly just to try to please you.

I don’t advocate big methodological approaches but just sitting down for coffee and demo-ing your product to poorly chosen people does more harm than it helps.