The always-inspiring Adam Greenfield does it again with an article entitled "Compassion and the crafting of user experience".
He doesn’t mention the web once but as a web designer, I found my head nodding in affirmation of everything he has to say:
"…when people sort themselves into teams, departments and companies, and set about designing something, very often this compassion for the user is one of the first things to go. Sometimes, it’s knowingly sacrificed in the pursuit of simplicity of manufacture, a desired aesthetic, or the bottom line."
"The "user" all too often becomes a denatured abstraction. And as a result, the product winds up working best (or solely) in the hands of people who strongly resemble the designers in ability and affinity."