In the Netherlands, an elderly woman spent a week in a shopping mall. She could not find the exit. She bought food during the day and slept on a bench at night. She could not find anyone to ask where the exit was.
In France farmers rioted because they could not understand the new laws they were supposed to obey. They blocked the roads for days with tractors and farm equipment, almost paralyzing the country. The laws were too complicated.
Industry research suggests that, unless they have an adolescent at home, over 90 percent of consumers do not use 95 percent of the features of their video recorders because they are too difficult to use.
When we shop at a large mall, we frequently forget where the car was parked. Mall owners employ staff to help customers find their lost cars.
Each year, millions of Americans wrestle with their income tax returns. The laws are so complicated that one in five of the nation's taxpayers wait until the final week to file their taxes by the deadline. In 2002, 27.1 million taxpayers—more than 20 percent—waited until the last minute to submit their income tax return. Generating maximum tax refunds is now a national pastime.
Programmers and technicians write computer manuals, as they are responsible for creating the software. Know the computer systems as well as they do, they cannot understand the problems facing users who do not know the systems. The result is confusion due to complexity.
After NASA first started sending astronauts into space, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens wouldn't work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and several million dollars developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface, including glass, and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C. Cost to the taxpayer? Don't ask.
The Russians were faced with the same problem; they used a pencil.
