Q: What’s new in your product? A: Not a lot, but we made it work

A bug free challenge?

I was reading the BBC today when I cam across this article about Evernote. I’m a big fan of Evernote and have no hesitation in recommending it. I admit it took me a while to get into it, but Its one of my favourite pieces of software to emerge in the past few years. I’ve been working in software for a while now on projects of varying sizes and stages in their lifecycles – I’ve taken on cash cows and poison chalices, new and old. But this story reminded me of a couple of conversations I’ve had over the years. 

When I visit clients for whatever purpose I have a few staple questions that I ask. One of them being – if you could chose one thing, across our company to change, be it product, payments, services anything what would it be. You usually get a stunned silence while people think about it. Then you get some great stuff – the wildest product feature, cheaper products, better accounts, training, better support, it all comes out. One answer has also stuck with me from a customer in Australia: “When you bring out a new product version, make sure all the features work. I’d rather 1 feature that works, than 10 that don’t”. Thats something which must resonate over at Evernote right now. As product managers, and innovators, we are often caught chasing the next greatest thing and can be guilty of not making sure everything works, and works well. Its a trap that most will fall into without realising until its too late.

Fast forward a few year from that and I was employed by a company with a product which was in a mess. It wasn’t really a product. There was a lot of demo code, a lot of branches to it, with customers all over the place on different versions. The demo code really meant much of it didn’t work, and it had a growing reputation in the company as “a bag of spanners” (technical phrase). Over the following two year we set about clearing up this mess to truly create a product. After about 18 months I was talking to a senior exec who asked me – “So, what’s new in it?”. I confidently answered, “not much, we just made it work”. Was it perfect, no, was everything in a state I was happy with? no, but did it work? Yes. That exec took those exact words and begun telling others, there’s not much new, but it works now. Much like my customer in Australia I’d take that any day over 10 features which don’t quite get there. Looking at the response from Evernote, I’m quite confident they merely have a few growing pains and their response will be to continue making great software that works.

Chris M

Who actually wants functional software?

For the avoidance of doubt. That is not me.

A couple of weeks ago some of the product managers in our company have been sharing a few ideas around user experience and how we can make more engaging B2B applications. One of my colleagues shared the following article which focussed on how people are “addicted” to technology.When looking at B2B applications we are – like many – exploring “Game theory” and “Rewards” to enhance the users experience in  a product. Whilst it is easy to dismiss this in a work environment – after all we do get a reward for doing our jobs, it’s called a pay cheque, there is definitely merit in exploring ways the user can be delighted by using a product. In a simple fashion it could be an “exciter” feature. Something which is beyond the minimum functional spec, but something which is basically cool and pleases the user. It’s intangible to a degree which is why most companies skip them. Think of reading a book on an iPad – turning the page mimics turning a real book page, with the reverse bleed of the ink visible (now removed in iOS7 of course!). Totally unnecessary to reading an ebook on the device, but very neat.

But a key disadvantage to designing B2B applications is that relative to consumer applications or even games the individual is often forced to use an application they did not chose, and its part of their job. In 2013 a poll revealed that up to 70% of employees did not like their job. That raises a whole other debate on how to improve your life, but back to software, this places a huge demand on the user experience and a software designers. Throw into the mix that in a B2B environment the users probably didn’t have any role selecting the software and it becomes easy to see why it is difficult to get right. This is pitted further against cost/corner cutting to get something into market.

I once heard User Experience defined once as “the difference between functional and usable”. Functional is no longer going to be enough to win the market, it is only one part of the equation. Instead businesses are going to have to invest further into User Experience and design so even if 70% of people hate their job – they might just like using your application. Game theory may play some role in this, but the software must move on to enhance the operators experience, increasing productivity and be centred around making them – and their line managers a hero! Functional software is very last year, usable software is where it’s at.

Chris M