This is not about CAD software but is a useful read for anyone involved in creating, training or using software. Scott Adams (The Dilbert Blog) deletes 500 comments from his blog thinking they were draft copies of the published comments. Often reality and user perception can differ with disastrous results.
The Scott Adams Meltdown: Anatomy of a Disaster.
“The designer develops a “Design Model” of the software, communicates it through the “System Image”—the look, feel, and behaviour of the interface. The user, in turn, attempts to recreate the Design Model through experiencing the software. This understanding then forms the user's assumptions, the filter through which they will interpret all further instructions.
Users can fail in two different ways in their attempts to accurately recreate the Design Model:
In the first case, the user has a lot of questions and is generally on notice that things could go awry. In the second case, the users believe they have successfully "solved the puzzle." They have no questions since they don't realize that the reconstructed model is wrong.
This second case is the dangerous one…”
