Trust Me, It's Not You

Seth Godin had an interesting post last night about the nature of communication. Essentially, we can blame our audience for not understanding or we can look to ourselves for not being understandable. Guess which one is more likely to lead to success?

This is one of the aspects of my industry that bothers me more than a little. I shudder every time I speak with someone and they tell me that they are too stupid to do anything with the computer (or on the internet or whatever). I always tell them that the problem isn't them, with only one exception:

They shouldn't think that they have to conform themselves to the tool (computer, Internet, etc).

So often, people in my industry build systems and expect the user to change -- the way they think or the way they work -- to fit how the tool builders think things should be done. In reality it should be the other way around. The best systems conform themselves to fit the needs of the user.

No matter what the system designers think.

So, what was the last piece of software, website, or online tool which forced you to change the way you did things? Are you better off as a result? Are you happier?