I've been involved in helping a company move an internally developed system from phase something to phase something else. It's very interesting to me. Management wants the employees to use the software a specific way. However, because the upgrading and development of the software has only been managed for the past year of the company's eight year existence, this is a problem.
It's an even bigger problem because management has attempted to design a preferred usage methodology into the software. I sat in a meeting today and watched management fail to rally enthusiasm for the upgraded software. Questions from users covered "Why is there no autorefresh? If we make a change to screen1 how come we need to close and reopen screen2 before it updates?"
I was tempted to suggest this feature was due to the program being Windows compatible.
Another question was "If the answer to that prompt is always 'Yes', why do we need that prompt at all?"
I wanted to say that it was somebody's favorite prompt, therefore, like an old shirt, it wasn't going to be thrown away.
"How come the executive options show up on everybody's screen when only the executives can access them? Everybody else who clicks on them will just get an error message."
Because it shows power? Maybe it serves to keep you in your place?
Note to software, web, whatever, designers; Usability doesn't mean they use what you want them to use, usability means it is useful to them.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Upcoming Conferences:
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston, presenting "The Blogging Power Continuum: How Bloggers & Their Audiences Share & Assign Power in a Knowledge-Based Medium"
- New Communications Forum 2008 22-25 April 08 in Sonoma Valley, CA
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