I talked to users...now what?

In my work, I always remind people who aren't trained in user research to take what users say with a grain of salt. Yes, talking to users is a must if you're designing something for them, but the information you take away from the conversations you have could either help you build a great product or lead you down the wrong path.

In reality, people don't always know what they need and can't make accurate predictions about how and if they're going to use a product. Also, people have bad memories and retrieving information is tough - especially information that they didn't store with the intention to retrieve. They're not liars, and they're not just trying to impress you; they may genuinely want to help and tell you about their day, their motivations, their behavior to the best that they can recall. But it's not always accurate. They may even play along with you and try to predict their future, but it's simply a prediction. 

As researchers, it's up to us to pick the useful information from all the "clutter" that isn't useful to us. It's important to take clues from the environment, to observe when we can, to ask the right questions (that lead to accurate and specific responses), and to always validate our assumptions. Data collection is easy, but filtering through it to find the most useful elements is the most important part.