As Jakob Nielsen points out, “users are pragmatic and concrete. They typically have no idea how they might use a new technology based on a description alone. Users are not designers, and being able to envision something that doesn’t exist is a rare skill.”

"Beginners are undeniably sensitive, and it is easy to demoralize a first-timer, but we must keep in mind that the state of beginnerhood is never an objective. Nobody wants to remain a beginner. It is merely a rite of passage everyone must experience. Good software shortens that passage without bringing attention to it."

"it’s best to imagine that users—especially beginners—are simultaneously very intelligent and very busy. [...] Just because a user needs to learn how to operate a product doesn’t mean that he needs or wants to learn how it works inside. On the other hand, intelligent people always learn better when they understand cause
and effect, so you must help them understand why things work as they do"

There is a huge and ever-widening gap between the devices we use to make the web and the devices most people use to consume it.