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Here we are on yet another Monday facing a week of yet more challenging but interesting work. Well that's my agenda for this week ... perhaps yours may be a little different ... but basically you and I will be trying to do much the same thing this week.

Basically both you and I will be trying to sell something online to people that we can't see ... almost certainly will never meet ... and know almost nothing about.

When you're faced with that situation trying to understand the people who are surfing our sites can be quite difficult so almost invariably we start looking at them through the filters of our own experience. And that can be a very big mistake.

For the last few weeks ... and for quite a few weeks to come ... my business has been working on a very large project for a client. It's involved the production of a website and the introduction of a very complex piece of software that works in conjunction with the website.

That software required a considerable amount of time to set up and it requires a considerable amount of input from people who visit the website and who decide that they want to do business with our client. And now that I'm beginning to see how people interact with that software I'm beginning to see a real problem arise.

Our client has very good reasons for wanting to use this particular piece of software and it is very good at what it does. We know that it is already working well for a number of other businesses and that was a major reason our client decided to buy this software over others that do a similar job.

However while our client's core business is the same as those others that have bought the software his target market is quite different to the market the others were targeting and that's where the problems are beginning to arise.

The people my client is dealing with aren't all that technically savvy. Of course they are computer users otherwise they would never find their way to our client's website and then go on to the point where they have to interact with the software ... but they're not advanced users by any means.

They're just ordinary people who probably do a little surfing of the Net ... check their emails ... do a search or two ... and make a lot of noise on Facebook. They probably think that's all there is to using a computer but they soon discover their limitations when this software asks them to provide important information in several different formats that you and I would take for granted.

And that's where the lesson is for any person who wants to do business on the Net. You have to always keep in mind one very basic principle ... never assume that the people who are visiting your website are as technically proficient as you are.

Just because you know the difference between a .jpeg and a .gif doesn't mean everyone else does. Just because you know that links don't always have to be blue and underlined doesn't mean that everyone else does. Just because you know that the best way to get to a site that you've visited before is by bookmarking it the first time you went to the site doesn't mean that everyone else does.

Just because you do things in a certain way doesn't mean that everyone else will do it that way either. And that's our mistake.

We assume that because we do things in a certain way then everyone else does it the same way. We assume that because we know how to interact with some software then everyone else will understand how to interact with it too

But they don't ... some of them don't know the difference between a word doc and a web page. Some don't understand the difference between text on a page and text in an image. Some of them will never understand because they don't have to ... they can still check their emails and post on Facebook without understanding any of the things that we think they should.

So if you and I are dealing with people who don't understand a lot about the Web and the way things work, how easy is it for them to interact with your web pages? How easy is it for them to find the links that they need to click on to go further into your sites? How easy is it for them to read ... and understand ... the marketing that you're trying impress them with?

Are you making it easy for them to buy what you're selling by bringing your marketing message down to their level or are you trying to sell to clones of yourself?