Users are gonna User.

What does this mean exactly? It means they are going to (often) do what they want/need to get things to work for them. They aren’t always going to follow process. They aren’t always going to click the buttons and do things in the way you want/expect them. They aren’t always going to use the tool in the way it was designed.

Which can be incredibly frustrating when you hear ‘the system doesn’t work’ or complaints or get tickets that don’t seem to make sense.

BUT – you should use this to your advantage!

Those users are great ones to help you kick the tires. To watch every once in a while to see if they are following process or going rogue. To ask questions about how and why they did it this way vs. that.

And if you always approach rollouts knowing that ‘Users are going to User’, that knowledge can help you create the right guardrails. Removing things that are confusing or could lead someone down a different path, introducing validations and descriptions and help text to remove confusion.

You can use them to help optimize or help tighten up a loose process. And you can build trust with them in the meantime. Win/Win