What's the most expensive mistake you can make in digital product design?

Building for yourself instead of your users. Are you sure you know what they want—or are you just guessing?

I came across a Reddit post about a team that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building an app, only to discover their target customers didn't want it. AT ALL!!!

It's a harsh (and expensive) lesson, but one that highlights a critical truth in product development: the cost of user research is a tiny fraction of what it costs to build the wrong thing.

User research isn't just about asking questions or running usability tests. It's about uncovering what your audience really needs, aligning your product with their mental models, and ensuring that every feature delivers value. Research saves you from costly mistakes, poor adoption rates, and frustrated users leaving because they "don't get it."

Too often, teams design for themselves instead of their users. But as the saying goes, "now thy user, and YOU are not thy user."— Arnie Lund

The ROI of research is clear:

$100 invested in research can prevent $10,000 in product redesign costs. (Source: Forrester)

Fifty percent of development time is wasted on reworking unnecessary features. (Source: Pendo)

Invest in UX research. It's not an expense; it's how you safeguard your product's success.

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