Usability of Enterprise Software

I recently attended the Gartner ITxpo conference where a few hundred enterprise software vendors demoed their applications. I was struck by how little UI innovation is happening right now in enterprise applications compared to consumer applications. In the consumer space, there are new operating systems such as Apple's Leopard, software for handheld devices such as the iPhone, web based applications like Google Apps, etc. that have many innovative UI features. This got me thinking about the reasons that UI innovation and ease of use is lagging in enterprise applications.

I think one reason is that, for enterprise software, the buyer is often a different person than the user. The user may care about ease of use, but the buyer is more likely to be shopping for the lowest price or the longest list of features. It is tempting for software developers to give higher priority to the desires of the buyer. The buyer may also be impressed by flashy visuals while the user will be more concerned about whether the software helps them accomplish their tasks and is efficient to use. For consumer software, it is more typical for the buyer and the user to be the same person.

A second reason is that enterprise software seldom gets critiqued the way that consumer software does. You can't just pick up PC Magazine and find a comparative review of enterprise software products. Feedback and open competition are important factors in the evolutionary improvement of products. Khoi Vinh of the New York Times discusses this in his blog at http://www.subtraction.com/archives/2007/1019_if_it_looks_.php

A third reason is that enterprise software is often designed for too many different types of users with different skill sets and different needs. After all, the more users the software is designed for, the more seats you can sell the customer. Trying to be many different things to many different people, however, can mean it doesn't meet the needs of any one user very well. In software as in clothing, one size fits all just doesn't work very well.

A fourth reason is the attitude that the problems to be solved by enterprise software are hard therefore the product must be hard to use. It is true that the problems to solve may sometimes be hard, but too often this is used an an excuse not to try to simplify the UI. Even if it can't be made easy, it can always be made easier.

A fifth reason is that the needs of a single customer can have undue influence on the design. If a consumer product has a million users, the manufacturer would not consider changing the design to meet the needs of a single customer. They design for the majority. With enterprise software, the number of customers is much more limited and, if Megacorp who buys a million dollars worth of your product per year wants a change, you typically make it even if that change is not needed by any other customer. Those changes can add up and over, time the product can become a little of this and a little of that like Frankenstein's monster.

For a sampling of some of the complaints people have about enterprise software, check out the article "Why Enterprise Software Sucks" at http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/669-why-enterprise-software-sucks and look at all the comments.

Enterprise software doesn't have to suck though. These are all solvable problems. You just need to be aware of the pitfalls in order to avoid them.

If you have other thoughts on the usability of enterprise software or examples of particularly good or bad products, let me know in your responses to this blog.