In the Blink of an Eye • Walter Murch • 1993
On the Audience
In Short
A film editor’s role as “ombudsman for the audience” shares the practiced empathy that a designer should have for people who use their designs. At the same time, both the editor and the designer can’t follow their audiences blindly.
In Depth
The editor, on the other hand, should try to see only what’s on screen, as the audience will. Only in this way can the images be freed from the context of their creation… Don’t unnecessarily allow yourself to be impregnated by the conditions of shooting. Try to keep up with what’s going on but try to have as little specific knowledge of it as possible because, ultimately, the audience knows nothing about any of this—and you are the ombudsman for the audience. (p.24)
In this description of the editor as “ombudsman for the audience,” Murch advocates a practiced empathy with others that is also very characteristic of interaction design. At the same time, when writing about test screening later in the book, he acknowledges that this doesn’t mean you do everything the audience wants:
You shouldn’t blindly follow what you learn from these screenings any more than you should anything else. What can you learn from the differences between the previous screening and this one? Given these two headings, where is the North Pole? Test screening are just a way to find out where you are. (p.54)
I think one of the primary tensions of user-centered design comes from the idea that design research is only about validation of a design, when really, as Murch describes, it is probably more about getting a better understanding of where you are and where you can go.