The ultimate collection of ‘dumb user’ stories
ZDNet — “I work at an Internet help desk and get calls you wouldn’t believe. One lady called and said she had been signed up for Internet access for over a month and was wondering when I was going to send her modem to her. Once I explained that she had everything she needed and walked her through the settings, she was online within minutes.”
How is this a “dumb user” story exactly? To me, it sounds like a very reasonable problem. Setting up a modem isn’t necessarily easy. Furthermore, this is not the ultimate collection of stories. These stories are lame.
September 27th, 2004 at 11:03 am
When the developer is looking to exclude usability, this is the stuff they use. The argument goes you can’t make something usable enough for such stupid users — so don’t even try. Nobody stops to think this is far worse “evidence” than some of the shoddiest usability work.