Golden Pebbles

Some notes for those who are touting their software as intuitive/easy to use:

1. It’s a relative concept. I was very excited in the mid 90′s to see how easy to use SAP R/3 was.  Compared to SAP R/2.
2. Of course you think it’s intuitive. You wrote it.
3. Things become intuitive once you’ve been trained to use them. I now find the Office 2007 ribbon intuitive, just as I find the location of Accelerator, Brake and Clutch pedals in my car intuitive. There was a time when I didn’t.

The only person who can convicingly claim that your software is intuitive or not is the person using it. As a developer it’s something I’ve often struggled with because what the end user finds intuitive can often be very different to what I think they’d find intuitive. Getting this right is half the battle (and half the fun).