When User Experience is Down the List...

This blog is dedicated to the user experience - but user experience is hardly the only factor in product design.  So what happens when it's a little farther down on the list of priorities?  Mark Hurst posted this message from an anonymous employee of Blackberry maker RIM, sent to the heads of that company:  "We often make product decisions based on strategic alignment, partner requests or even legal advice -- the end user doesn't care. We simply have to admit that Apple is nailing this and it is one of the reasons they have people lining up overnight at stores around the world, and products sold out for months. These people aren't hypnotized zombies, they simply love beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work."  It's true - the user doesn't care about your strategic alignments, partnerships, or IT-friendliness.  User experience trumps it all, and results in something even better than demand for your product - love for your product!