Enterprise software and usability

The long debate...

A lot has been said about this.

Of course - usability is important. It reduces learning curves, it increases effectiveness, it increases sexiness. It increases appeal and reduces cost of ownership.

But reality is more complicated than that, of course.

• Those who buy are not those who use, and the enterprise market builds for those who buy, guided by those who say what should be looked at - analysts and big vendors offering the convenience of the 'no fault' purchase ("nobody has been fired for buying ", " is in the top-right quadrant").
  The set of criteria that ends up being applied at the end of the day is functionality-based - even though users frequently do not need more functionality.Is this a good thing? Not from the perspective of the end user, but can the software vendor be blamed for increasing value for its shareholders and employees by submitting to the tyranny of the existing approach? Maybe in the long run - but debatable.
  You could as well point out that those who buy have a responsibility to their users, the value they create and ultimately their shareholders. As long as the connection between the benefits to the actual users and the value of these benefits to the shareholders do not trump the other real or perceived priorities of the buyer, I see little chance of this situation changing fundamentally.
  
• Building software is hard. Building enterprise class software is hard, and must take into account constraints and/or requirement classes that are difficult to reconcile nicely. The product managers and developers of enterprise software have to contend with difficult scalability issues, security issues, compliance issues, legacy support issues (both technical and human), long and complex release cycles, lack of acceptance by large customers of bleeding edge solutions, etc...
  None of these precludes building usable software - it just makes it harder, and when you combine this point with the previous one, it's clear that usability will frequently be partially sacrificed.
  
• Usability is relative to users, essentially cultural entities. Highly dependant on context. I have the utmost respect for well designed usability - but I represent one cultural perspective, and I know that many things that make me efficient are not efficient for my colleagues.
  This is of course why we end up with the seemingly impossible to exhaust list of configuration options in so many systems that have to cater to more than one function and more than one user type.
  Is this unavoidable? Tough to say, again. Certainly more effort could go into avoiding resorting to the "let's give them options" syndrome, but we do not live in a theoretical world - moving the responsibility to end-users themselves (or their proxies in the IT organizations) may very well represent the rational compromise between cost and benefit from the perspective of both seller and buyers.
  Fighting this is hard. But some do... You'll notice, however, that most of the "oh how usable this is" comments tend to be around software users *want* to use rather than those, even painstakingly well designed - at least from some aspects, that users *must* use.

A lot more can be said about all these subjects and much more articulate people than me have weighed in. But the fundamental reasons are above.

Is usability a lost cause in enterprise software? I don't think so. I think we are on the verge of major changes.

• The enterprise 2.0 revolution (sorry - buzzword, let's assume there is one and it fits what the pundits claim it is) will move the center of gravity to the users by reducing the role of intermediaries.That will change the distribution of power described above, and make the actual users both more relevant and more responsible in the purchasing and renewal decisions.
  
• As interoperability increases, out-of-the-box integration will cease being a major issue and stickiness will become one.Reducing the switching cost will empower the end user with the same effect.
  Of course, I am not naive enough to think that will happen fast and software vendors will make it easy on their own. It will happen under the pressure of the disruptors.
  
• As software-as-a-service turns to reality in more parts of the enterprise, the reduction in perceived, felt cost by buyers and users will result in more emphasis in the other areas neglected so far.
  
• As marketing goes "2.0" and customer acquisition becomes more viral, etc...

So I do think it will happen. But it will be tied to the empowering of the software user that will result from the "2.0" disruptive technologies and approaches. Don't expect it from those that are not threatened.

Ok, enough buzzwords for one night.