The User isn't Stupid

Have you ever read a bug report and think (or be told)  that the user isn't stupid.  No one would ever do this! So why are you wasting our time?

Because every user does "dumb" things sometimes.  Occasionally this is from a ditzy moment (Like that time I touched my iron right after using it) but mostly this is not the case.  Reality is that people do things because it seems like it will work.  While there are always those that purposefully test the boundaries of a system, mostly people are just trying to use your software to solve a problem or get a task done.  They try things because they can.  If it wasn't a good idea, the program will prevent us, right? Even though I know better, this is still how I approach things! 

Also, people have been trained to explore products now.  Some sites and apps will have tutorials but most often tech comes without instructions.  The last time I got a Blu-Ray player the instructions were basically, "plug it in and follow the on-screen instructions" (Side note: There weren't any on-screen instructions but that is a different story).  We can often look things up on Google or YouTube but it often is faster, or at least it feels faster, to just start using the product.  This leads to users doing things how they think it should work, rather than how it was designed to be used. 

What do you think leads to users doing "dumb" things?

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