I'd been working with a customer for the last few months. He had reported quite a few bugs and use-model improvements in the software.

In one of the e-mails, he asked me how to use a particular feature of the s/w. I gave him the info, but knowing the kind of practive and thoughtful person my customer is, I wondered why he did not consult the User's Manual of the s/w. In a follow-up phone conversation, I let my inquisition get out, and asked him whether he didn't find the info in the UM.

To my surprize, he told me that he did not consult the UM at all. As a matter of fact, he had stopped reading UMs of not just that s/w, but a lot of others. He asked me whether I know how to use MS-Word, whether I know how to drive my car... and then he asked whether I had read the UMs of MS-Word or even my car.

It dawned on me that what he was arguing was whether we really need to read a UM to learn how to use a product (be it a s/w, or a machine). In other words, a s/w, or from a rather broad perspective, a product should be developed so that its use-model is intuitive. And that means that UMs should not be needed.

Well, I wish life were so simple, and that such products could be developed. The point to be taken home is that we should try to simplify use-models and make them as intuitive as possible. The other point is that the era of orthodox UMs is gone. My customer wants an online UM where he could type his Q, and the search engine could give him the answer -- did I say, google? :-)