Don Norman published The Psychology of Everyday Things in 1988, later retitled The Design of Everyday Things. His central argument was a direct inversion of the prevailing assumption of the time — that when users made errors, the fault lay with inattentive or incompetent humans. Norman said the opposite: if the user fails, the designer failed first.
This was not obvious in 1988. It was radical. Industry operated on the assumption that errors were caused by people not paying sufficient attention, not following instructions, not trying hard enough. The response was always the same combination: more training, clearer instructions, stronger warnings, and greater exasperation from management.
Norman pointed out that this was the wrong question. The right question was never why aren't people using this correctly — it was why have we designed something that requires people to behave in ways they naturally won't.
He coined the term user experience at Apple in 1993. Within a decade the technology industry had restructured itself around his insight. Billions of dollars now go into understanding exactly how real humans behave in front of a screen — not how they should behave, but how they actually do.
We would be quick to challenge the business owner who blames customers for not following instructions. We are far more sympathetic — even understanding — when the same business owner watches their staff struggle with an internal process and reaches for the training manual with increasing frustration.
Same human beings. One standard for customers. A different standard for the people they pay.
The business doesn't care how the outcome happens. It cares that it happens. With customers, it accepts that easy is a fair price for the outcome. Staff are the same humans.
What chance a business that engages its people in the manner that actively works with its customers — as opposed to the way it knows is disadvantageous with them?
