Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
By leelefever on July 23, 2004 - 2:54pm.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been involved in creating prototypes for Intranet-based learning/communication tools (I know that is ambiguous). Anyway, we’ve put the prototypes in front of about 30 folks to gather feedback. This experience has given me a deeper perspective on the challenge before us. Here are some examples of what we hear:
“If I’m going to use it, it has to fit into the way I’m working. It can’t ADD something else for me to do- I have too much to do. It has to make what I’m trying to do now better or faster. If it doesn’t, I won’t use it and your work will be for nothingâ€
These aren’t actual quotes, but they are close. Hearing this, I began to look at the tools I use everyday and think about what allowed me to integrate them into the way I work. What was it about the tools I use that made me switch? I have two examples:
LookOut. Lookout was a free search tool for Outlook and your files (It's no longer available, see below). It indexes your information so searches are fast- and it works. I don’t look through folders anymore- LookOut allows me to get to buried emails and files more quickly than before. It saves me time- a lot of time.
NOTE: Upon visiting the LookOut web site, I see it has been acquired by Microsoft. I imagine we'll be seeing this in Outlook soon.
ieSpell. This is a simple tool that I use almost daily. Anytime I’m writing in a web based form, like through a browser, I use this tool to check spelling. Every weblog post, every Yahoo Groups post, every time I write online, I use this tool to check spelling. IE Spell makes me look better and saves me time by filling a gap in the IE browser.
Both these free tools have made it into my work life with no problem. What have you recently integrated into your work? Why did it make the cut?
Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
This response is familiar to me:
“If I’m going to use it, it has to fit into the way I’m working. It can’t ADD something else for me to do- I have too much to do. It has to make what I’m trying to do now better or faster. If it doesn’t, I won’t use it and your work will be for nothing”
What I wonder is what does it really mean? I know people don't need "more" but I think it also covers other types of resistance that have little to do with the task or potential solution. Things like:
* technology makes me uncomfortable
* it took me a long time to get used to this, I don't want any more change right now
* I don't understand how it will benefit me (rather than thinking add/subtract)
I think we have to be careful interpreting this statment. I suspect it begs us to ask more questions rather than come to a conclusion. The same goes with the idea that people really want or understand the implication of "everything in my in box" with the way in boxes are currently constructed.
Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
As always, Lee - good article. The quote is worth the whole article. I think you hit on something, Nancy, a lot of people resist integrating new technology into their tool belt because of some of the reasons you mentioned, but I think that speaks more to the programming of the software than to the user. A lot of software is so un-intuitive that it create something to fear by taking too long to get used to or doesn't adequately convey its benefits to the user. The flip side of that coin is software that doesn't do much: is so intuitive that nothing can really get done because simplicity was the goal at the sacrifice of features, the interface gets in the way once you know how to use it instead of expanding with your comfort of it (i.e., wizard/beginner mode with an advanced mode), or is just hype.
Unfortunately, these two opposites seem to dominate. You have the open source movement that tends to focus on features or the technical end of things and you have the Microsoft's of the world that focus on marketing their tool paying no mind to the fact that their over selling its real-world usefulness.
Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
Lee:
Lookout is avaiable for download (again) from the company website: http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/download.html
Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
Two great tools I've started to use that integrate into my workflow (MS Outlook) are NewsGator for aggregating RSS feeds in my inbox and Plaxo for managing my contact info.
I'm going to go download the ieSpell spellcheck right now. Thx for the tip.
kk+
Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
Thanks for the comments folks. I agree with Nancy that the example comments could be symptoms of an underlying issue. It's a bit like some find in user research -- what people say they do and what they actually do are often two different things.
I think that one of the factors that increase the chances of actually using a new tool is the degree to which the person can quickly build a mental model about how it will help them. This is a challenge for designers- I think Blogger did a great job recently on their home page.
With LookOut and ieSpell, I could see a model quickly because it improved tools I use everyday. I had the context I needed.
Perhaps the question may be about how to make tools appealing without the luxury of context. For example, what would make blogging attractive to an executive who doesn't know they exist?
I think it depends a fair amount on how quickly that person can build a mental model regarding how it could help them do better work. I wish it was easy just that easy.
Why Did These Tools Make The Cut?
http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
Spellbound is the IE spell for Firefox, much easier to install in the new .9 firefox.
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