Erika Hall in Just Enough Research argues, “The first rule of user research: never ask anyone what they want.”

But shouldn’t we, as the makers of technology, give users or clients what they want from the technology that they’re about to use or give others? Are they not the final decision makers, the ones supporting our jobs and buying the product?

The problem is that what you want can overlook what really matters.

What people want isn’t always what is best for them. We all know this well. It’s evident when sick children refuse to take medicine, addicts repeat self-destructive behaviors, and I pull out the Haagen Dazs at midnight.

This means that what someone wants doesn’t necessarily confront the root cause of a problem. What we want is susceptible to influences from forces outside of our control and awareness, which include our own cognitive limitations. In other words, users will propose subjective solutions to an objective design problem that is typically influenced by factors of reality unbeknownst to the user themselves.

Conflicts between wants and needs can be evident in where we put our money. In response to the recent viral campaign of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Julia Belluz depicted in the infographic below the discrepancies between how much money we donate to confront various diseases and which diseases we actually die from in America.

Despite the truth of which diseases impact the lives of Americans most in the number of deaths, the money put into addressing diseases have a lot to do with who has the money to donate, what diseases have touched the lives of theirs or their loved ones, personal priorities, memes, celebrity endorsements, and more. The way to confront the diseases that kill us clearly aren’t driven by rationality.

Even more gripping is how many of the diseases in the list that kill Americans most, such as Heart Disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Type 2 Diabetes, are preventable with the right lifestyle choices. Healthy eating, regular exercise, comprehensive education, and not smoking tobacco serve as impactful preventions or cures for many these diseases. We are “predictably irrational,” as Dan Ariely describes how we make decisions.

This means that the makers of technology have a social responsibility when deciding how to design their product before handing it off to users. This is because designs make assumptions and people aren’t perfect. And the mixing of the two can be a dangerous cocktail.

Consider Secret, a mobile app marketed as a way to portray your real self by sharing thoughts with your phone’s contacts anonymously. Sounds like an idea with good intentions, but anonymity is a double-edged sword. While it encourages sharing private anecdotes, it also easily incites flaming and trolling because it relinquishes responsibility of people’s actions by removing personal identities (see: cyberbullying).

According to Charles Liu, instead of asking what users want, here are three better questions to ask:

• What are you trying to get done? Why?

By asking users what their goals are, we understand them and the problem better. This will add to your knowledge of what matters and what doesn’t when creating your solution.

• How do you currently do this?

Knowing what users currently do and don’t do in order to achieve their goal allows you to further empathize with the user throughout their process. Pinpointing causes of their frustrations will teach you which holes to fill with your design.

• What could be better about how you do this?

Validate or improve your design solutions with the user’s response to this question. The user might have special insight about improving their problems that you can use to your advantage.

What other questions could be useful when creating technology? Feel free to add your thoughts below.