[massivecali]

I've worked on several projects where the actual needs would get distorted between the customers and the developers in a perverse game of telephone. Each producer or manager feeling the need to reinterpret as they saw fit.

[duxup]

My most recent job the head of the company had a great comment. One of the first things he told me "Our end users are not smart, no matter what anyone tells you. They can barely use a computer. Remember that."

He wasn't wrong ;)

[MBCook]

I HATE that attitude. It may occasionally be right (depends on your product/intended use) but it was the catch all ‘do as I say’ excuse one of the executives used at a previous job.

Have a suggestion on how something could be done better? Your way is too complicated and our users are dumb as posts. So we can’t do it. It’s not worth even thinking about.

Of course if THEY want to do the complicated hard to understand thing, it will be fine.

Just one of MANY examples.

Why do the job if you have actual contempt for your users?

[duxup]

>Why do the job if you have actual contempt for your users?

It's not contempt, it's understanding who is at the end of the keyboard.

In this case our customers are fairly capable, but the software is really for their end customers who are in a niche industry that is AMAZINGLY behind the times in terms of technology, and the people they hire who actually end up doing a lot of interacting with the software are honestly barely high school grads and are surprisingly incapable / startled by anything out of a very specific routine.

[ox_cable]

> Why do the job if you have actual contempt for your users?

To... To get paid, isn't that obvious? Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

[Aeolun]

I mean, yes, in retail or the service industry, but it should be possible to find a job in IT where you can at least tolerate the end users (or just never see them altogether).

[TeMPOraL]

Seconding MBCook here; I believe this advice is nonsense.

Truth is, most people are smart enough. If this is a product for internal use, then they might be also extremely motivated, as it happens when handling some piece of software becomes a key element of keeping a job.

Taking the approach of "our users are dumb" makes sense only when you're not thinking about providing value for those users, and instead you're worrying your product could make the wrong first impression (and probably not on users, but the managers), and thus not get bought. It's a valid priority for business, but it would serve everyone better if people were up-front about it.

[duxup]

>Truth is, most people are smart enough

I agree, if we assume they're going to try. It's not a perfect world and IMO most people really aren't trying / putting in the effort on the things we think they should. It's not fair, but if they're not going to try, they're still the person behind the keyboard.

[flukus]

> It's not a perfect world and IMO most people really aren't trying / putting in the effort on the things we think they should

That's a managerial problem not a technical one, so any technical solution like dumbing down the user interface will almost certainly fail.

[Aeolun]

If your user interface is so simple that understanding it doesn’t take any effort at all, that’s a pretty great thing.

I imagine the hypothetical lazy user thinking ‘I cannot figure out a way to convince my boss that I do not understand this UI...’

[TeMPOraL]

> If your user interface is so simple that understanding it doesn’t take any effort at all, that’s a pretty great thing.

Nah, that's an indicator the software is most likely not very useful. Like in code, in user interfaces too there's both essential and accidental complexity. Plenty of the latter to improve on, but reducing essential complexity === reducing features === reducing utility of the software.

> I imagine the hypothetical lazy user thinking ‘I cannot figure out a way to convince my boss that I do not understand this UI...’

I imagine said lazy user asking the boss to buy a training course. If that software is so important for the company, a training course is both useful and cheaper than hiring someone who maybe can learn the software themselves in place of said lazy user. Training courses tend to provide ample opportunity to slack off too, so that's a double win for the lazy user :).

(That said, from personal observations of my wife's and mine, people seem to be split on that somewhat halfway - one half will jump at the opportunity to learn something new and progress at their workplace or in their career, the other half will roll their eyes and ask "why should I bother"? That latter group responds to "because it's that or your job" argument, though.