User acceptance testing
UAT, or “user acceptance testing” is the process whereby an IT department experiments on its workforce the way scientists experiment on mice. It is designed to make sure new software it would like to impose on the workforce but which users neither want, understand nor care about, will not be so disruptive, annoying or useless that users rise up in outright rebellion.
“Acceptance” implies tolerance, not enjoyment. Forbearance. Sufferance. Coming to terms with a generally unsatisfactory circumstance. Sacrificing individual freedomeand preference for “greater good”. When one says “I have accepted my fate” one does not necessarily mean one is happy about it. So it is with user acceptance testing.
It is not called “user appreciation assurance”, or “user experience enhancement”, or “user productivity maximisation”, for a reason.
It is not about the user.
See also
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