Imagine walking into a high-end Brazilian steakhouse, ready for a mouthwatering parade of grilled meats, expertly carved at your table, but something’s off. The servers are hesitant, they don’t seem to know the difference between flank steak and filet mignon, the chef recommends the vegan house dressing for your ribeye, and when you ask for a hollandaise sauce, the kitchen sends out silken tofu. You discover the place is run entirely by people who’ve never eaten meat.
Now, imagine that same dynamic — but with software. Welcome to the modern digital experience, where using an app or platform can feel an awful lot like trying to enjoy a steakhouse meal prepared by people fundamentally unfamiliar with steak.
The Steakhouse Setup
In our analogy, the steakhouse is your software – one restaurant in a busy city teeming with other restaurants, bars, and theaters catering to the same customers (i.e., other features, tools, and environments). The developers are the chefs – except, in this case, they’re vegan chefs who don’t eat what they cook.
The users are the patrons. They’re hungry for a seamless, enjoyable experience… and repeatedly puzzled by what actually gets delivered. It’s not that
Imagine walking into a high-end Brazilian steakhouse. You sit down, ready for a mouthwatering parade of grilled meats, expertly carved at your table. But something’s… off.
The servers are hesitant. They don’t seem to know the difference between flank steak and filet mignon. The chef recommends the vegan house dressing for your ribeye. And when you ask for a hollandaise sauce, the kitchen sends out silken tofu. You discover the place is run entirely by people who’ve never eaten meat.
Now imagine that same dynamic — but with software. Welcome to the modern digital experience, where using an app or platform can feel an awful lot like trying to enjoy a steakhouse meal prepared by people fundamentally unfamiliar with steak.
The Steakhouse Setup
In our analogy:
The steakhouse is your software—one restaurant in a busy city teeming with other restaurants, bars, and theaters catering to the same customers (i.e., other features, tools, and environments).
The developers are the chefs—except, in this case, they’re vegan chefs who don’t eat what they cook.
The users are the patrons. They’re hungry for a seamless, enjoyable experience… and repeatedly puzzled by what actually gets delivered.
It’s not that the chefs are bad at cooking. They’re often highly skilled, passionate, and technically brilliant. It’s just that they’re not tasting the food. They’re not sitting at the table to understand how a real person experiences what they’re serving.
And that leads to trouble.
Example #1: The Gap Between Specs and Reality
Software developers often work from detailed specifications, focused on delivering precise functionality within tight deadlines. But specs can’t capture every nuance of the user experience. Developers are focused on delivering “functionality,” not necessarily the full experience.
Real-life example: A developer once asked me, “What did you do to edit this template? So I can reproduce the issue.”
I replied, “I clicked the Edit button on the template, edited the text, and clicked Save. How do YOU edit a template?”
His response? “I’ve honestly never edited one through the UI. I just went into the database and changed the template.”
This revealed a gap — not in the developer’s skills, but in the process. They’d been given requirements to build an edit function, and they built it exactly as specified. But without experiencing the user journey firsthand, subtle usability issues remained invisible until someone actually tried to use it.
That’s a bit like a chef designing a house sauce without ever stepping into the dining room — unaware how it’s served, what it’s used on, or how it interacts with everything else on the plate. The result might be edible, but it’s probably not what the diner expected or wanted.
Example #2: “It Works as Intended. It’s Just Confusing.”
There’s often a gap between “meets requirements” and “makes sense to a real human being.”
I once reported that it took an unnaturally complicated series of steps to complete a routine task. The response I got back? “It works as intended. It’s just confusing to the user.” That’s like serving deconstructed lasagna—all the components are technically there and properly cooked, just not layered in any sensible way.
Consider this common scenario: To add a new address, the user must click on the “Add Address” button. A form opens—but then they have to click into the first field before they can start typing. Why?
The user has to experience this extra step Every…Single…Time. You know they want to add an address because they clicked/tapped the button. Setting focus in the first field should be automatic, but without experiencing the workflow firsthand, this friction point goes unnoticed.
Example #3: “Works On My Machine” Syndrome
Developers often do their testing in controlled, local environments. They build a feature, run a few tests, and call it done. And yes—it may work perfectly on their machines, with their data, and their authentication tokens already in place.
Real users aren’t launching from localhost:3000.
They’re out in the wild, dealing with variable connections, incomplete data, unexpected user paths, or the simple act of clicking the “back” button. Something may pass unit tests but doesn’t survive contact with real-world messiness: edge cases, special characters in form fields, or whatever haunted legacy data lurks in production.
It’s like a chef nailing the perfect medium-rare on their practice steak—but not realizing the steak doesn’t reach the customer because the waitstaff never picked up the plate.
The solution: Test with real user data appropriate for the client’s role and permissions. Test in environments that mirror production configurations. This reveals edge cases and exposes the difference between “technically functional” and “actually usable.”
Why It Matters
This disconnect between development and user experience doesn’t come from bad intent—it comes from a system that rewards the wrong things: checklists over empathy, functionality over usability, “done” over “delightful.”
When enough of these small pain points accumulate, even the most polished software can leave users frustrated, confused, and reluctant to return.
We’ve all been there: eagerly anticipating that parade of perfectly grilled meats, only to be served alternatives with unpleasant textures, confusing presentations, and flavors that miss the mark entirely.
The Takeaway: Even Vegan Chefs Can Master the Steakhouse
Software developers: even if you’re the metaphorical vegan preparing something for others to consume, remember that the steakhouse experience is for the patron. You don’t have to become a meat lover to make a good steak—but you do need to understand what makes the dining experience satisfying.
You’re uniquely positioned to catch usability issues before they reach users. Even when working from someone else’s design specifications, you can:
- Experience your work as users do: Log in through the actual interface. Follow the complete user workflow without shortcuts or backdoor access.
- Question confusing requirements: If something feels awkward to implement, it might be awkward to use. Your technical insight can help identify potential UX problems early.
- Test with realistic scenarios: Use messy data, slow connections, and edge cases that real users encounter daily.
- Advocate upstream: When you spot usability issues during development, flag them. You’re often the first person to actually interact with the feature.
- Collaborate closely: Share what you learn during implementation with designers and product owners. Your hands-on experience can inform better design decisions.
So log in like a user. Walk through the workflow without shortcuts. Use the UI instead of the backdoor. Ask questions. Test weird inputs. Watch someone try to use what you built.
Because the best software isn’t just technically correct—it’s perfectly layered lasagna. It’s piping hot picanha grilled to medium-rare perfection.
It’s something your users actually want to consume—and come back for seconds.
The post Why Using Software Is Like Eating at a Brazilian Steakhouse Run by Vegans appeared first on Atomic Spin.
