Intuitiveness: Power Users vs Boomers: Google Reader

David Pierce, founder of and author at the20life recently had his Dad – a non-technical web user – pen an insightful post on using Google Reader. The article got me thinking. Are online applications really as intuitive as we think? I mean, for me, Google Reader is uber-intuitive. But that’s largely because I’m an avid user, tester, and designer of online products. But my intuition as someone who grew up with the web is a whole lot different than the intuition of the average boomer.

photo credit: karindalziel

I would love to hear your thoughts. What things should we stop taking for granted as “intuitive”? Is it up to the application developer to design using naming conventions that boomer populations will understand, or is it up to the app user to get to know what a service does – even if the naming conventions and functionality are foreign to them?