What is the customer's expectation?

An interesting thing comes up now and again in meetings: talking about a "customer's expectation" when going through a web site.This is nothing more than a "but I want this feature" gambit for the most part. Why? Because unless a user repeatedly interacts with a site then how the heck does the user know what to expect?Sure, if you're running Google or Facebook then you can talk about these things since the user works with you all the time. All you have to do is look at the Facebook groups every time they update anything: "Bring back the old Facebook!" they all say.But if you're running a simple web site, just make things work. Don't guild the lily, just make it work. If you make something just try it out. How do the users interact with it?How can you make it better?Then do it.Don't try to make it better before it's out there in the first place.