Only joking, all you end users out there! But Philanthropy 2173 puts it perfectly:
Have you ever wondered why everyone – grandmas, kids, CEOs – can figure out how to use Amazon, eBay, Google but the otherwise-intelligent staff of nonprofit organizations often need extensive support from the companies or associations that provide them with grants management, CRM, web-conferencing and other software?
Why yes, I have! It seems incredible that some of the smartest people I’ve ever met just don’t have the time to invest in learning how to use software properly, but that’s how it is. It doesn’t help that most software looks as if it was designed by a colourblind mountain gorilla with a severe font disorder, and that’s exactly what a group of NGOs in Bangkok noticed:
As the session leader noted, “its because the commercial properties invested in interface once, and don’t have to provide support afterwards.” Amazon et al depend on their FAQs and online databases to answer your questions. Actually, they depend on their interface being useful enough that you don’t have any questions. And it tends to work.
Which means that unless we can design software that has a sufficiently intuitive interface – i.e. it looks like other software or services that you’ve used before – we’re going to keep running into the same old problem. Better design, that’s a good start (I live in hope), and web-based services that can be updated from a central point without everybody having to upgrade their software are also a good start.
The most important thing, though, is something that my old martial arts teacher used to tell me: FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. Software needs to match user expectations, fit in with their existing ways of working, if it’s going to work out.
People are able to adapt to new technology, no doubt – email is a good example, a mode of communication that simply didn’t exist before and consequently had to establish new patterns – but it’s incredibly difficult to “enforce” that adaptation in the NGO community.
Full post at Philanthropy 2173: Investing in interface. Hat tip to David Geilhufe.
