---
title: You are not the only place
date: 2024-10-03
tags: [design]
description: We can ultimately provide more meaningful services if we realize that our users can and will use other systems.
---

When working on a project, it's easy to become absorbed. We sometimes fail to
realize that our users are not as single-minded: They can and will use other
systems. If we want to build anything of value, we must look beyond our own
systems and understand the broader context in which our users operate.

Here are three cases in which I should have realized that sooner:

## Design like your users spend most of their time elsewhere

In the world of design, we often emphasize the importance of consistency.
However, unless you are Google or Facebook, and probably even then, you should
expect that your users spend far more time on other people's websites then on
yours. We should therefore think beyond our own design guidelines and consider
how our users experience the web as a whole.

## Be open for external references

During my time at an organization that provided online forums for political
discussion, we made a critical oversight: we assumed that conversations were
confined to our platform. We failed to acknowledge that discussions were
happening everywhere — on social media, in news articles, and in everyday
conversations. Instead of merely hosting discussions, we should have focused on
summarizing the broader discourse and providing useful references to other
platforms. By doing so, we could have positioned ourselves as a valuable
resource in the larger conversation. Instead, we quickly vanished into
irrelevance as discussions where happening elsewhere.

## Know your niche

At a conference focused on systems for scientific libraries, I witnessed a
fascinating discussion: Many attendees were surprised to learn that researchers
often begin their searches on platforms like Google, and only turn to the
library for "known item search" when they want to get access to a publication
that is not open access.

Some of the attendees were open to accepting that fact and concluded that we
should focus on making the known item search really good. Others were offended
and felt like we need to do a better job of communicating the benefits of a
proper topical search. Yet others noted that in very competitive fields,
researchers do not use external search providers because they are afraid that
others could find out what they are working on.

Any of these strategies is better than ignoring the issue.

## Conclusion: Context Matters

In all three examples, the underlying issue was a tendency to be self-obsessed,
overlooking the fact that users engage with a multitude of systems. If we
recognize that we are not the only place, we can ultimately build better
systems that actually provide value for our users.