One of our customers at a large engineering firm used the term “User Belligerent” recently in a talk he gave, speaking about how difficult some software is to use. I couldn’t agree more.
It seems so many software companies fall into the mistaken belief that their product is so great, so useful, that it doesn’t matter how challenging or complicated it is for the end-user. But, in the end, end-users usually have the last say. If the product is “user belligerent”, end-users will simply not use it. Or, if they do use it, they will not use it well. So the moral of the story is: when comparing products and determining all the key requirements, at the end of the day… ask yourself if the choice you’re about to make is “user belligerent”.
