Software is socially ineffective
I have been working in IT for over 15 years and through that time software has always been seen as being effective in solving business and real life problems.
There is however a dimension that has been sorely neglected and that is organizational and social structures and human psychology. If you look at this as a triangle it makes sense. The bottom third is the technological infrastructure, the middle layer is the functional features whereas the top third, the cone, is users and usability. So initially software was chosen on it’s technical merits and then functional matrixes were elaborated to make sure that software was functionally rich.
We can see this in the evolution of products such as Microsoft Word. Initially it had to work albeit with a minimal function set. Then it evolved into a functionally (too?) rich product. The problem was that not many used a significant portion of these functions but many complained that although rich in functions it wasn’t particularly “usable”. The latest version therefore is functionally very similar but a vast effort has been made to make it more usable (or at least more visibly attractive).
I could expand on this but the point of this post is really to highlight a problem.
My work description leads me to promote collaboration in my organization. My employers are obsessed (in a way very rightly so) about the technical infrastructure, standards and frameworks. On it’s own this leads to very frustrating, functionally poor and unusable software packages that are almost always rejected.
It was then decided to create and test software on a functional matrix using real world tasks and problems to “functionally fit” the software to the organizational needs.
The problem of course is that if the software is not given usability tests by focus groups or future users we inevitably end up with software that is technically excellent, functionally rich but users don’t want to approach it let alone actually use it.
Good software then needs a holistic approach with all three considerations factored in.
There is however a further problem that needs to be solved or at least considered.
Human psychology and sociology is independent of software.
Unfortunately, you can give the best collaborative software available to users but if they are not collaborative in nature or if the organization is structured and organized to impeach or hinder collaboration. The software will fail.
This is why, in my opinion, that the organization needs to be stimulated by management through structure, processes and education to become collaborative in nature precociously before or during the introduction of collaborative software.
This brings me to my last point in this post. I am not really a social animal at heart. I suck at polite conversation and social skills although to balance this I love meaningful conversations and real discussions so I’m not a social outcast either.
The Web 2.0 is here and with it we can all join in. I blog here (and elsewhere), I have a flickr account, I partake in de.lic.ious, Facebook, MySpace, Netvibes, Last.fm, Twitter, Pownce, Picassa, StumbleUpon, MSN, Gtalk, Digg, etc etc
Has this made me any more “social”. I fear not. What I remark the most that most of my friends are on most if not all of the aforementioned “networks.” What we need is training in social skills because mine sometimes are spread very thinly and I sometimes wonder if I would happier signing up for less new things and concentrating on existing ones (like this blog for instance ;-).)
I’ll leave it there for today.
Tags: education, General, information, opinion, social, studies, Web 2.0
