Watching the NH primary results yesterday, one thing became clear that is true both in politics and web design: don’t trust what the user tells you they want from your product, but what they actually do when faced with the product.

The same way asking voters for intended vote is not an accurate science, don’t expect surveys and focus groups and surveys to paint a full or consistent picture of what the internet user will do when he/she gets to your page.

As this article in Slate said, quoting expert Gerald Zaltman:

“Unconscious thoughts are the most accurate predictors of what people will actually do,” Zaltman said in an interview. “In the space of 5 or 10 minutes in a focus group, which is the average airtime per person, you can’t possibly get at one person’s unconscious thinking.”

 Ignore at your peril