I've written here before about how I struggle to learn a new application when starting a new job because they don't let me go sit with the end users. I won't rehash that topic again except as it ties into this: yes, I eventually learn how to use the system but I feel like I never learn how the users use it. Users develop a workflow to get their jobs done. Ideally an intelligent and UX-friendly workflow will be designed into the system otherwise the users end up just fighting with it or forcing it to do what they need or developing workarounds.

I see so many systems that are just a bunch of screens tacked together. The user has to somehow guess what's required, where to go next. Some years ago I was on a small team that was asked to develop a new feature. I tried to design the series of screens for the new feature. They ignored my work and the dev lead and the manager sat down and started designing the screens from the developer's point of view. They wanted me to participate but kept ignoring my comments. As I saw and watched them talk it through, they'd have the user starting in screen 1, move to screen 2, somehow know to move back to screen 1 for another step and then go to screen 3. I asked several times how the user was supposed to know all that while they ignored me, and then finally when I asked again, the dev lead looked at me and said "just tell them!" (like he was exasperated with me).

And today I get asked to do something that really makes me hyperventilate: do a demo of the system from the user's perspective for the client's management. Again, I know how to use all the components of the system, but I don't really know how their users use it, i.e. in what order they do things, the WORKFLOW. Yikes!

Can anybody here relate?