Wine tasting over dogfooding in XD

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I’m partial to saying “wine tasting” over “dogfooding” software experiences.

As in the situation:

A: Hey, we just conceived this new feature in our product.

B: Well, how can I help?

A: We need people to dogfood it internally.

Since my MIT days, I’ve heard the phrase “dogfooding” and it always grossed me out a bit. So I like to say, “I’m wine tasting a new feature.” I’ve always found it so much more civilized.

Today @johnmaeda introduced me to the term "wine tasting" as an *infinitely* better replacement for "dogfooding". Positions your product as something you might actually enjoy 🍷

— Alexis Lloyd (@alexislloyd) September 19, 2018

So it was fun to see the reaction on Alexis Lloyd’s Twitter feed after I shared this with her. I raise a 🍷glass to the eradication of the phrase “dogfooding” in tech! —JM

I always took it to mean you should be experiencing what your customer does, whether you’d prefer it or not. If designing for dogs, or perhaps non-drinkers, good wine isn’t what the customer is hoping for.

— Scott Berkun (@berkun) September 19, 2018

I think most "smoke" their own product.

— PC Maffey (@pcmaffey) September 19, 2018

Like it. I’d heard a more specific flavor of that — champagning, aka drinking your own champagne.

— Jim Meyer (@purp) September 19, 2018