Computer people often are guilty of talking only in acronyms.  This can be intimidating to the user who may not understand the acronyms and hence cannot fully understand the problems or opportunities that are being presented.  However, it can also be confusing when the end user  has similar acronyms and does not understand how they are being used differently.

One of the best examples of this was observed when an external consulting team developed a DSS for a large, progressive hospital.  Part of the development team met with a committee of the nurses and nursing supervisors to design one component of the system.  During this discussion, designers kept referring to the I/O and how it would change.  The nurses were obviously becoming more and more confused until one of them asked, "What do the patient's liquid inputs and liquid outputs have to do with how we can make better nursing decisions?!"  In other words, they were baffled because "I/O" had a meaning to them, but not the same usage as that of the consulting team.