A recent study emphasizes that personal computers and broadband Internet are much slower to penetrate the U.S. consumer market than televisions have been.
This ought to come as no surprise -- many people's lives don't revolve around technology. What I found shocking was the reaction to the news on Slashdot, a "news for nerds" forum frequented by Internet cognoscenti and software developers. The most common overall theme -- contempt -- is summed up with quotes like these:
- "People are afraid of computers, and as usual are unwilling to overcome even the most modest of barriers to learn a new skill."
- "The computer takes not only knowledge and mental ability, but the worst part it takes EFFORT to use."
- "People don't use computers willingly because they require that you not be stupid in order to use them proficiently."
- "Human stupidity and laziness, especially the reluctance to take the time to learn key concepts such as computer security and e-mail attachment limits."
If you hear attitudes like these among your coworkers, don't let them go unchallenged. Elitist snobbery is bad for business. Contempt for customers trickles through to your products in the form of poor usability, shoddy QA, off-target marketing, and ultimately even deceptive and fraudulent business practices.
Are consumers who don't adopt your products lazy or dumb? Only if you've done a very bad job of defining your target audience. Business-to-business firms fight this perception by being very clear they're selling "solutions." Stop selling technology -- sell things your customers actually want, or need but don't yet know they need.
Defining and using personas is another great way to defeat customer contempt. Ground them in research data (not assumptions or based on one person you know) and they become almost like real people, with usability concerns you can relate to and design to overcome.
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