The data, conclusions, and implications of this are huge, and go several ways.
First: virtually nobody using information technology has any idea of what it's really doing, or how to do anything beyond a very narrow bound of tasks. This includes the apparently proficient, and it's almost always amusing to discover the bounds and limits in knowledge and use of computers by the highly capable. Children, often described as "digital natives", are better described as "digitally fearless": they're unaware of any possible consequences, and tend to plunge in where adults are more reticent. Actual capability is generally very superficial (with notable exceptions, of course).
Second: if you're building for mass market, you've got to keep things exceedingly and painfully simple. Though this can be frustrating (keep reading), there's absolutely a place for this, and for systems that are used by millions to billions (think: lifts, fuel pumps, information kiosks), keeping controls, options, and presentation to the absolute minimum and clearest possible matters.
Third: Looking into the psychological foundations of intellectual capabilities and capacity is a fascinating (and frequently fraught) domain. Direct experience with blood relatives suggests any possible genetic contribution is dwarfed by experiential and environmental factors. Jean Piaget's work, and subsequent, makes for hugely instructive reading.
Fourth: If you are building for general use keep your UI and conceptual architecture as stable as possible. There simply is NOT a big win at UI innovation, a lesson Mozilla's jwz noted years ago. (Safe archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115213/https://www.jwz.o...) Apple's Mac has seen two variants of its UI in over 35 years, and the current OSX / MacOS variant is now older than the classic Mac UI was when OSX was introduced. Food for thought and humble pie for GUI tweakers.
Fifth: if you're building for domain experts, or are an expert user forced to contend with consumer-grade / general-market tools, you're going to get hit by this. The expert market is tiny. It's also subject to its own realms of bullshit (look into the audiophile market, as an example). This is much of the impetus behind my "Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User", based in part on the OECD study and citing the Nieman-Neilsen group's article:
(I've been engaged in a decades-long love-hate, and increasingly the latter, battle with information technology.)
Absent some certification or requirements floor (think commercial and general aviation as examples), technical products are displaced, and general-market wants will swamp technical users' needs and interests.
It helps to rmember that as a rule, all but one mass-market social networking platform will fail. "Success" means "claiming the most mindshare". And if you're in the mass market, that means there's only one brass ring.
Any roadblocks or injuries, self-inflicted or otherwise, toward attaining that goal will not help you. Google+ certainly had much help inside and out in failing to attain that mark.
Paradoxically, this is why aiming for a specific niche can be a success, at least on its own terms. Reddit, Twitter, and Hacker News qualify on this basis.
Facebook is now actively competing against not only other comers, but itself (WhatsApp, etc.) in various guises. A battle it will all but certainly, eventually, lose.
First: virtually nobody using information technology has any idea of what it's really doing, or how to do anything beyond a very narrow bound of tasks. This includes the apparently proficient, and it's almost always amusing to discover the bounds and limits in knowledge and use of computers by the highly capable. Children, often described as "digital natives", are better described as "digitally fearless": they're unaware of any possible consequences, and tend to plunge in where adults are more reticent. Actual capability is generally very superficial (with notable exceptions, of course).
Second: if you're building for mass market, you've got to keep things exceedingly and painfully simple. Though this can be frustrating (keep reading), there's absolutely a place for this, and for systems that are used by millions to billions (think: lifts, fuel pumps, information kiosks), keeping controls, options, and presentation to the absolute minimum and clearest possible matters.
Third: Looking into the psychological foundations of intellectual capabilities and capacity is a fascinating (and frequently fraught) domain. Direct experience with blood relatives suggests any possible genetic contribution is dwarfed by experiential and environmental factors. Jean Piaget's work, and subsequent, makes for hugely instructive reading.
Fourth: If you are building for general use keep your UI and conceptual architecture as stable as possible. There simply is NOT a big win at UI innovation, a lesson Mozilla's jwz noted years ago. (Safe archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115213/https://www.jwz.o...) Apple's Mac has seen two variants of its UI in over 35 years, and the current OSX / MacOS variant is now older than the classic Mac UI was when OSX was introduced. Food for thought and humble pie for GUI tweakers.
Fifth: if you're building for domain experts, or are an expert user forced to contend with consumer-grade / general-market tools, you're going to get hit by this. The expert market is tiny. It's also subject to its own realms of bullshit (look into the audiophile market, as an example). This is much of the impetus behind my "Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User", based in part on the OECD study and citing the Nieman-Neilsen group's article:
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...
(I've been engaged in a decades-long love-hate, and increasingly the latter, battle with information technology.)
Absent some certification or requirements floor (think commercial and general aviation as examples), technical products are displaced, and general-market wants will swamp technical users' needs and interests.