usability fail.

The first system designer-user conflict occurred fairly early in our historical tradition. We read in the first two chapters of the Bible (1) a story about a system designer who spent six long time periods designing and implementing the system which we call the world. At several stages in the design and implementation periods, we read, that this designer and builder, whose techniques are widely studied, stopped, reviewed the progress of the job and commented on its goodness. At the end of the sixth time period this designer turned over his system to two users and went off to take a well-deserved rest. Tradition tells us that at the point it was turned over to these two somewhat unsophisticated users the system was perfect. We learn that very shortly thereafter the users used the system contrary to the designer’s instructions and system performance has never been the same since. There are even those who say that after continued misuse of the system by subsequent users, the designer-builder of the system withdrew all further system support, leaving the users to fend for themselves (2). — Aaron H Konstam