Choosing a ChMS – Fully Functional, or Easy?

When choosing a new ChMS, people often say they need more capability; that their current product just won’t do X, Y, and Z. However, if you look really hard, many of the existing products have feature sets far beyond what most people are using. If the feature exists, but it’s not practical to use it, then I would like to claim that the feature really doesn’t exist. Per an old Apple commercial (that apparently only I remember), slightly adapted, “the most powerful system is the one that actually gets used.” If a feature isn’t used, it might as well not exist.  If a feature is too difficult to use, well, that’s the same thing.

If the user who is supposed to perform a task can’t figure out how to do it, then no matter what the spec sheet says, the product doesn’t have that feature (at least for that user). Too harsh? Please disagree. If your users can’t (or even won’t – does it matter?) go through the steps, perhaps painful, to perform a task, then the software has failed to perform the task. Call it user error if you want, but the bottom line is that the task didn’t get done. If software requires exhaustive training, but the training is forgotten, then nothing was accomplished.

When evaluating, instead of saying “does the product enable doing X,” say “Is Bob [or Jane or whomever] readily capable of performing the steps to accomplish X with this product?” If the answer to the second question is ‘no,’ then for all practical purposes, it’s ‘no’ to the first question as well! Using that simple criteria, many product checklists would be reduced to a bunch of empty boxes!

So, who has intuitive, friendly, even “easy” software? Obviously, this isn't just about ChMS.

Comments

[David Carroll]

Tony, just because a feature is hard to use doesn't mean it does not exist as long as there is somebody putting in the effort to understand it and make it work. You're aren't going to get it perfect the first time or even the first several times. The pioneers who will suffer this process will make it better for those who follow. Systems that don't evolve through usage and feedback are the problem. As long as you are making progress, listening, and rethinking all the time, then there is great hope for things that attempt to do the hard thing even though today they might be hard to use.

[TonyDye]

=>>David. I think we're in agreement. It's great when somebody masters a tool. My point is that if nobody is willing (or able?) to master that tool, then the tool is useless. So either a product has to be something that can be learned ("easy"), or the value has to be high enough for someone to go through the pain of learning. Of course, easy and high value together is a real win!

[Davcar]

I guess my issue was with your statement: "If a feature isn’t used, it might as well not exist. If a feature is too difficult to use, well, that’s the same thing." To difficult for Bob and Jane but perhaps not too difficult for the pioneer, who will clear the way.

Speaking of "Bob and Jane", your suggestion to ask whether they were "readily capable of performing the steps to accomplish X with this product?” Assuming we are talking about some hard thing X (hard because it is complex and requires effort to setup), then my answer might be:

"Right now, I don't expect Bob or Jane to be able to accomplish this. It is too hard, but we'll help you do it. We'll step in and take the brunt of the task. We'll help you get the job done by eating our own dogfood and make it more palatable."

In other words, it's called outstanding support. And a willingness to partner with your clients and help them help you help them. I often tell my clients, if you are feeling any pain whatsoever with our software, let us know, make us feel that pain too. We respond quickly and well to pain. We'll make it better. That's what the agile development and fast iteration methodology is all about.

High value and easy to use software is difficult to produce to say the least. But it is the right and God-honoring thing to do with our God-given talents. But the old adage applies here "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

[Joel Lingenfelter]

It's not about pioneers verses bob and jane. One of the most important things we utilize are confidential comments for pastors to keep notes on walk ins, phone calls, people in the church etc. This allows us to function as a team and avoid "pastor shopping" when someone doesn't like the biblical advice they were given.

"Out of the box" Arena allowed us to do this. But the pastors would have to click on a little key, and then select which permission role(s) they wanted to allow to be able to see the comment. I am 100% certain that if I had tried to sell that in our pastoral staff meeting I would have been met with glazed eyes and the database would not be used anymore for this purpose. It's simply too difficult, too many steps for a pastor to remember when they really just want to enter a quick note and move on.

So what we did was work with Arena to add a new feature called "security templates" which allowed the pastor to see a popup list of templates (in our case, two) for all users or confidential comments. Whatever they used last would be the default, so 99% of the time they don't have to think about it at all.

End result? Our pastors use the system and the comments are kept, well, confidential. I would argue the feature didn't exist beforehand, despite the fact that it was technically possible. It was only after the change was made that it became something that was usable, and I would argue it was a feature addition.

In the area of ChMS the old approach was to pile on the features to meet everyone's checklist, and if it took 47 modal dialog boxes to make it work, well, it still could check the box. This is absurd. I agree with you Tony, needless complexity makes a feature useless.

Consider: With a computer attached to my tv, I could turn on "sharing" from my itunes library on my laptop, then go on the computer attached to my tv and access that shared library, select the song I wanted to hear and then click play and it would play. Not terribly complicated but how many people actually do it?

OR I could connect an AppleTV to my TV, and click the "airplay" button from my laptop, or my phone, or my ipad, and accomplish the same thing instantly. While the first scenario isn't terribly difficult, the fact is that nobody does it so it might as well not exist. Airplay is revolutionary. Not in what it does, but in HOW it does it. It makes it easy.

Or, think about it this way: I could connect my laptop to my tv with a DVI - HDMI cable, get the laptop and the tv talking, and then display a slideshow on my tv. I have done this. With an AppleTV, I now can simply click the airplay button and accomplish the same thing without connecting the cable first. That, right there, is for me the #1 reason to buy an AppleTV... Again, not really a new feature, but it's HOW it's done that makes it revolutionary.

Joel

[TonyDye]

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Thanks Joel. I think David and I are having a very friendly, and small, disagreement on terms, which we continued on his blog. http://blog.bvcms.com/2010/12/choosing-a-chmsfully-functional-or-easy/  We’re not as far apart as our words might indicate. Glad to have you in on the discussion. Nice use of the Apple TV example. It’s amazing when something previously so complicated can be converted into something trivial.