There is no such thing as an intuitive app!
Millennials to the Technology Rescue
We tend to think of millennials as the tech-savvy, computer-literate generation who will finally lead us to the promised land of productive enterprise application roll-outs. If my experience of millennials is typical, it is hard to find one of them NOT using technology at any time of day…and possibly night. That background must surely make the use of any software a business might deploy a breeze! No more training, no manuals, no help desk – just chuck the stuff out there and away we go.
Sadly, new research from Dropbox and Ipsos Mori, looked at over 4000 employees globally and found that 31pc of them found the experience of using technology in the office stressful. Another survey by the Institute of Cultural Capital (funded by Cisco) revealed that 29% of UK workers do not think that their companies have adopted digital technology effectively and a staggering 40% complained that the tech had not “been explained effectively to them”.
Millennials are particularly frustrated: 36pc of 18-34 year olds are exasperated by technology at work, compared to 25pc of over-55s.
It is beginning to sound like our white knights have fallen at the first hurdle.
Why do we Need Apps Anyway?
Apps help us automate dull and tedious tasks. They also allow us to spend more time doing more profitable things.
If enough of our employees are all using apps correctly the mass of all their interactions gives us an understanding and control over what is happening in the business now and in the future that was impossible prior to the advent of computers. Apps are tools and tools help us do our work more productively.
This trend of increasing productivity through the use of tools started with the first Stone Age axe (probably fairly intuitive), picked up rapidly with the steam age and accelerated beyond imagination with the availability of business software.
However, it is clear that this trend has suffered something of a setback in recent years as companies have failed to invest in technology post-recession or failed to get the result from the software they have tried to deploy.
Usability Versus Functionality
So we are in danger of getting caught on the horns of a dilemma: The obvious solution to a stall in the drive to greater productivity is to put in place more technology, but at the same time it would appear that new technology is not being implemented sufficiently by companies and where it is adopted they are not doing a great job of it.
Apps can either be very intuitive or very functional, but nobody has done a great job of making them be both:
Our millennials have shown that a proficiency with Whatsapp, Snapchat and Candy Crush do not actually constitute advanced training for application navigation and use. In fact, if anything it means that, as users, they are more likely to give up on an app quicker than the older members of the work force who are more used to badly designed and obscure software. We should also remember that just because a UI is attractive and friendly it still doesn’t mean that users know what to do in a particular field on a given screen.
What is the Answer?
The solution is definitely not to give up trying! Those companies that invested in new technology at the start of the recession found themselves well ahead of their competition as the economic situation started to ease.
There is a limit to how much ‘user friendliness’ in a UI can actually translate into anything other than a less frustrating user experience and clearer navigation.
The dream of ‘no more training, no manuals, no help desk’ just isn’t realistic – software isn’t even ‘intuitive’ at the level of navigation unless you already know what you are doing. If you have swapped from Windows to Mac or Android or vice versa, gone from a mouse and keyboard interface to a touch screen, you will already know that to be true. This is before we even start to look at what the app is actually trying to do.
If we take an application like Salesforce CRM as an example, the objective is to automate a very complex sales process, to take a mass of information from various sources and make it digestible, to encourage productive behaviour and to do all of this quicker than ever before. These are not things that can be designed in to a user interface or toolset – to realise the objectives of CRM and therefore to excel in the use of CRM itself, the know-how, experience and best practice of the organisation needs to be made available to the users when they are using the application and made available through the application. Training, in-app coaching and continuous improvement are essential to ensure we resume our previous productivity trajectory.
This sums up what Improved Apps are all about, so if you need help to make your Salesforce platform applications more productive you really should take a look at us!