Usability: A Must Read from the WSJ
May 24, 2008
I’m too nerdy to read the Wall Street Journal every day. A few minutes with most stories, and I feel as if an MBA consultant were telling me that investment bankers are really nice people. I made an exception this morning, and I strong urge you to navigate to the Journal’s “Business Technology” Web log here.
The post “Business Software Vendor Finds Business Software impossible to Use” carries a date of May 21, 2008, but I just saw it. Nevertheless, this is an important story. The main point for me is this statement:
IFS, a business-software vendor, sent us [the Wall Street Journal] … the results of a survey earlier this year of more than 1,000 respondents. Its findings: “A full 60 percent of respondents said their enterprise software was somewhat difficult, very difficult or almost impossible to use. Only 9 percent characterized their applications as very easy to use.” The biggest time wasters, IFS found, were the need to search through complex navigation systems to find information and the need to learn how to use many programs that all worked differently.
Why is this important? First, the data substantiate my research, Sinequa’s data, and Jane McConnell’s information about enterprise search. High dissatisfaction rates and wasted time–these are the cripplers of some organization’s efficiency and decision making.
I’m going to try and get my hands on the full study from IFS. The Web log post doesn’t tell me how to get a copy. The WSJ provides this link to a study summary here. I filled in the IFS form here, but as of 7 am Eastern on May 24, 2008, I don’t have a copy. I want one. If you come across the full report, let me know.
Usability, not technology, is the key to success it seems. Hasn’t this been Steve Jobs’s mantra for a long time? Good work, Vauhini Vara. A content quack to you from the Beyond Search goose.
Stephen Arnold, May 24, 2008
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