You're exactly right – but you realize, there's a whole group of people -- a whole discipline, in fact, that does exactly what you're talking about, right?
We're designers.
And we do have & run consultancies. Places like IDEO, Frog Design, Adaptive Path, RED, Doblin (Part of the Monitor group now), Gravity Tank, Teague -- and many, many more.
User centered design processes should be backed up by rich user stories, that come from real user experiences. The only way to do that is to go out in the field and get exposure to the who, what, when, why and how of what the users are doing, want to do/need to do and how they use your product/service.
And if you do it right, you can make a much more successful product that sells a lot better while actually doing some good for the users.
We're designers.
And we do have & run consultancies. Places like IDEO, Frog Design, Adaptive Path, RED, Doblin (Part of the Monitor group now), Gravity Tank, Teague -- and many, many more.
User centered design processes should be backed up by rich user stories, that come from real user experiences. The only way to do that is to go out in the field and get exposure to the who, what, when, why and how of what the users are doing, want to do/need to do and how they use your product/service.
And if you do it right, you can make a much more successful product that sells a lot better while actually doing some good for the users.
Not a bad line of work, IMHO.