I can't quite tell if you're implying this or not, but it's important to distinguish between "incompetent" as an insult and "incompetent" as a word meaning lack

I can't quite tell if you're implying this or not, but it's important to distinguish between "incompetent" as an insult and "incompetent" as a word meaning lacking in necessary skills. In this case, identifying a users level of competence (or incompetence) is an important precursor for identifying the problem that technology needs to solve. And this appears to be exactly what Nielsen has done. I'd take more offense to "pathetic" and "useless".