Speaking as someone who spent four years in a Hell described as “Tech Support for Realtors” back in the days before the internet was big and before there were high speed connections (read: we were configuring modems for a big dial in BBS) I can surely agree that All Users Lie.
It’s interesting that Heidi used the hedge phrase “may be different” when her own study data showed that users’ aspirations and reality were almost always different. Maybe she aspires to live in a world where aspirations and reality aren’t so wildly divergent. I don’t blame her. It’d be nice.
I remember being amazed at the people I used to support on the phone’s lack of knowledge or just lack of understanding! I could go through 10 minutes of walking them through a procedure doing some sort of configuration and at the end they tell me to ‘hold on for a minute, I need to write this down,’ and then I find that the entire time they haven’t been at their computer. sigh
I’ve talked before about the need for a secret tech handshake. The assumption that the person on the other end of the line knows nothing is always a safe bet, unless of course it’s me calling in get support I wonder why people are always asking me stupid questions….