I overheard a clever engineering nugget at work today. I'd attribute authorship to the speaker but I'm unsure he would care about this wee little blog or want his name associated with the quip. I'll refer to the author as DP.
I'll be phrasing it as I heard it, paraphrasing given my limited short-term memory.
"I remodeled my kitchen some time ago. The designer was armed with a extensive list of questions. After answering what seemed an endless number of questions, I noticed the designer hadn't asked where I wanted the dishwasher located, to which she responded 'the dishwasher always goes to the right of the sink'." DP, a diligent engineer, extracted a design philosophy from this simple event. When best practice principles are known it's best to not ask the customer less they answer wrong.
Finding the right balance is always a challenge, it's easily to over-correct. While the customer has expertise in the problem domain, you have expertise in much of the solution domain. It's your responsibility to bring your expertise in as applicable, that's specifically why they brought you in. For example, best-practices in UX design is likely outside your customer's expertise and rather than asking specific layout input from your customer it's better practice to base a layout on best practices and acquire feedback. Both you and your customers bring the right stuff to the table is a recipe for a successful meal.
Good dining.
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