People are the Problem!

Via a Many to Many posting, the idea that People are the problem is one that resonates particularly strongly today.

Even the most usable tool has its problematic users who just do not appear to grasp the concept even when training is reinforced by follow-up sessions, support, feedback mechanisms etc etc. I'm irritable today because a user has blamed his/her likely loss of data on our CMS. Now our CMS has its faults, and may be to blame, but experience suggests with this indvidual that it is user error. This isn't a usability issue, because users are warned at every step to save, delete etc. which I feel this chap might not have done. The thing that got my goat is that he automatically blamed the system: this despite the fact that all usability textbooks say that users blame themselves for system errors - obviously the inverse case also applies! Nil desperandum...