What do people really want?

They do not know what they want. And there is no one universal answer. It is a diverse one. Variabilities.

Watch Malcolm Gladwell Presentation on Ted.com on this.

No universal principal, but cluster group will help identify. Embrace human diversity.

How?

"Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE). In short - people do not know what they want and there is not much sense asking them about it directly. The focus groups have no use in this situation and they were NOT used in the cases superbly described by Gladwell from the experience of Dr. Moskowitz. He happens to be my co-author of the book Selling Blue Elephants: How to make great products that people want BEFORE they even know they want them (Wharton School Publishing, 2007) that describes in details all the cases presented. In fact, RDE approach is very different from the focus groups - it presents experimentally designed prototypes to the respondents and asks the consumers whether they like the prototypes or not. RDE never asks what they want. It evaluates their liking (purchase intent) and deducts the best combination of the ingredients (food) or message (ad) or visuals (package, website, magazine cover, etc.)
You can read more about that at www.SellingBlueElephants.com or in my recent article at Daily News and Analysis (http://www.alexgofman.com/Gofman_DNA_10.04.2007.sm.pdf).", Alex Gofman