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The fact that everyone is stupid _sometimes_ does not imply that we are all equally stupid. The fact that someone cannot figure out how to use your application is not in itself a display of stupidity. Conversely, the fact that someone cannot figure out how to use your application is not in itself a display of the stupidity of the application. The user we call stupid is the one that does not understand what all his peers do understand and for whom it is danmed near impossible to develop an application at all. Who doesn’t listen, doesn’t learn and whose cognitive skills are nearer to those of a chimpansee. You wouldn’t try to develop an application that one of them could use along with all other humans, now would you?
Stupid users exist, and they are everywhere. In fact, users now are stupider than ever. Yes, there are stupidly designed user interfaces but more often than not users fail at software because they expect it to work magically like in the movies. People try to use software in a way that resembles someone giving voice commands to a toaster then wondering what’s wrong.
I have conducted user tests and I have observed people trying to use software. What I found is that the average user does not care about the subject matter (nor should they as most of the time it’s for work and work is inherently boring most of the time.) That leads them to go zzz and just try to wing it then claiming stuff is too hard to use.
What I’m trying to say is that even an ipod UI is not going to save users from failing at using boring software. A perfect example of that notion is games. Games have often UIs that are just as stupid as the next yet people overcome that because they are interested in the game.
@Zamarona: moving things around is actually a big part of the problem users have with UI design. You don’t see the place where houses have doors changing every few months do you? Why should software do it?
Or let’s take a car analogy, how would you feel if you suddenly found your wheel on the other side than the pedals were when buying your car version 1.2?
@Ivo actually if my target audience was part chimpansee and part human I would very much make the same interface work for both. After all, there is only one common denominator: The Most Stupid, Least Dexterous user. If it works for them, it will work for everybody and it’s really the people who have the most problems you should be looking at because we all too often use “Meh you’re just stupid” as an excuse not to improve what we think is good enough. It’s often better to be excelent than good enough.
@Ariel Arjona: I’m glad you brought up games because they have one of the best UI’s out there. THey may be complex, but they’re still intuitive (drag&drop, pictograms, looking around with a mouse etc.) and most of all, they are CONSISTENT not only within themselves but across whole genres and in some cases even more.
Most of all, games try their bst to mimic how we do things in real life and that’s why users don’t have a problem with them, but do with “serious” software.
[...] Stupid users are a myth – another post about developers not understanding users, with emphasis on ignorance on knowing how to use something versus being honestly IQ challenged [...]