I came across this blog post from 37signals today:

The difference between common knowledge and universal knowledge – 37signals.

I enjoyed this because it’s something we constantly struggle with at SpinWeb. The struggle is “how do we make this easy for our clients” while still following common usability rules. As tech-oriented people, we (i.e. the team at SpinWeb and similar teams at similar agencies) often do forget that the average person has no idea what Twitter is and has never used Facebook. We take many things for granted and so we sometimes forget that others don’t live in our world.

It’s a fine balance point between providing extreme education and support, and at the same time asking our clients to take a leap of faith and supplement their existing knowledge with some new skills that we are happy to teach. The best relationships are a result of both parties making an effort to learn and grow.