I Stopped Building and Spent a Month Watching

I did not write a line of code for a month. I watched people use the product instead.

Ten sessions. Start to finish. No interruptions, no leading questions, no explaining what they were supposed to do.

The things I learned in that month were not on any roadmap. The button that everyone missed. The setting that scared people. The step that made them hesitate. The flow that worked fine for me and fell apart for anyone who did not already know the product.

I came back and spent two weeks fixing things nobody had reported, because nobody knew how to report them.

Have you ever stopped building long enough to watch? And what did you see that you could not have guessed?