Is Your Site Ready for the Average User?

If you are using computers and surfing the Internet for some time, as is likely the case since you're visiting a site for webmasters, you would probably have acquire a large number of skills that allow you to find things on the Internet, navigate a site, contract with the annoyances that some sites pose, and the like. The problem with such skill is that it is easy to lose touch with how a large portion of Internet users really operate on the Web, and thus design a site that does not get advantage of the special needs of these "average users".

My use of "average user" here might emerge to some to have the suggestion of "novice user". With the explosion of the Internet reaching into many homes in the world, it seems to me that such users are repeatedly increasing in number. Where once upon a time when we think of a computer user we picture a nerd, now, just about everyone uses a computer, even my elderly parents. This extensive use of computers also means that the computer is no longer the region of an elite few who actually appreciate the innards of a computer. The average user is no longer that computer expert, but the large number of people who treat the computer as a use, somewhat the way we regard our toasters or VCRs.