The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think
This is a great topic and an informative article.  As a probable exception to the rule, I'm an "older" individual with decent computer skills. No doubt it's attributable to managing and programming computers out of necessity since the IBM PC days.  Having to learn everything the hard way has its merits.<p>Related to the article I created and maintain a database application for an non-profit arts organization.  It involves membership, artwork inventory and exhibitions.  It's a fairly complex task, almost all the work goes into the web-based UI, while the PostgresQL backend/server is pretty straightforward.<p>The challenging part is getting the artists and volunteers to <i>actually use</i> the DB program.  The UI is as simple and unambiguous as I can make it.  There's only so much to do to make a record with two dozen fields to fill in "simple".<p>One method is using dropdown options to select from where that fits.  Also avoiding hidden "tricks" the user would have to know, giving on-screen examples of proper field format (like date or time entries) and providing concise, specific, instructive error messages.<p>Even with all that effort, convincing users to try it out has proven the biggest hurdle to success.  I've come to realize a key to the tool's utility is constant encouragement.  Live demos are often a useful way to help people "get over the hump" of fear and resistance.<p>Ironically, the "power users" often show the greatest resistance to trying out the web app.  While it's made to work as directly as possible, power users fear they will look "dumb" if they don't instantly grasp the operation of every feature.<p>What I've learned (again) is it requires empathy for users' fears and sense of intimidation, and assuring the app is designed with "foolproof" safeguards preventing accidental disasters.  Above all it takes enormous patience training users, listening to user feedback, answering questions and <i>never, ever</i> criticizing when people make mistakes.