Make it easy on yourself (and your colleagues)

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

A recurring theme at Tuesday's Enterprise 2.0 event (pictured below), was that in order to successfully implement a social software tool such as a blog or wiki, in the enterprise, it has to be easy to use. I don’t think this can be emphasised enough.

In his well-received presentation (listen to a podcast of it here), Nathan Wallace said that with the wiki software they use at Jannsen Cilag (called Confluence and discussed here), to create or edit a page/doc/article it’s simply a case of “type and press save,” or, “you hit ‘create page’, then type and press save.”

Very simple and very easy to do, to the point that 340 people at Jannsen Cilag have created 25,000 articles in two years and saved over 200,000 e-mails being sent.

Another important aspect with Confluence is its single-sign on feature, which a) instantly eliminates the problem of having to remember different intranet logins, and b) reduces the time wasted from having to login several times over.

In businesses today, a software application’s ease of use should surely be of the highest priority. Not what it can do if you want xyz-option - bells, whistles and everything - but how easy it is to do the basics, and the things people need to do to get their job done more easily (which was also a key theme on Tuesday).

If someone isn’t overly familiar with how to use the intranet or create a document on it, and the first experience they have is difficult, then, unless it’s of mandatory use, you've probably lost that person's enthusiasm for good.

I’m pretty sure this is why the vast majority of millions who logged into Second Life during the mega-hype in 2006/7 never went back. It's clunky, slow, hard-to-use software.

In contrast, the simplicity and ease of use of applications such as Flickr, Blogger, Typepad etc. is, in large part, what’s fueled their growth. Sure, you can get complex if you want, but it’s easy to get into in the first place.

What I’m saying isn’t new, of course, but for day-to-day enterprise software applications and day-to-day web stuff in general, ease of use is paramount. It's often forgotten, however.

For example, the other day when investigating a 5-user licence for Microsoft Office for Mac, I was sent round the houses of Microsoft.com.au, then to Microsoft.com which was no help at all. After going back to the start and trying again with the same result, I completely lost interest, and got on with something else.

In contrast, when looking into a 5-user licence for Movable Type, I went to the site, clicked the box, typed in a credit card number and downloaded the software.

Easy.

On a broader scale, things like digital SLR cameras have opened up very high-standard photography to the masses. Video editing programs that are simple on top but sophisticated underneath have fueled massive growth in online video.

When the barriers to using something come down, usage goes up. It's not rocket science.