Nick Carr's enterprise software fantasy land

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Reason #5

Well...I don't know if I qualify as an "Enterprise Irregular"
but I can give the opinion of one who has developed and marketed
both enterprise and consumer applications.

While priorities is a necessary condition for the difference
in design, the sufficient condition is the more importat:

5. Consumers can and will walk, employees can't.

In my experience there is not only a lack of expertise
in human factors and usability in enterprise development
groups, but there also a lack of interest in the subject.
And, while 1/2 the reason is that functionality, integration
etc. do take priority, companies often end up paying for the oversight anyway in the form of training and "change management" (or making money at it as an added service as an ISV!)

So...IMHO most enterprise apps could be a LOT more usable,
but because organizations feel the pain on the back end
(training, labor inefficiency) as opposed to the front end
(missing functionality) they make poor ROI decisions
out of ignorance and politics....because they can.

It is just another example of the enterprise software
space's obsession with features (useful or not).

Regards,
Joel York

Posted by: york_joel   Posted on: 12/09/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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