Why Can't Enterprise Applications Be Simple?
I used to think I was half way competent until I recently tried to order a pen and some laser printer toner using the newly implemented procurement application at my workplace. Boy, was I wrong; it turns out that I must be flat-out, stupid.
I tried, I really did, but upon entry into a maze of links, buttons, and input fields, I was baffled and stunned. So I gathered some of my brightest colleagues, Dan, Ryan, and Phil around to help. Surely, one of these technical programming gurus, who design and write business applications on a daily basis, would be able to solve this procurement riddle, right? Guess again, my friend.
In the end, I went to Wal-mart at lunch to buy a pack of pens out of my own pocket because frankly, my hard earned dollar I spent just wasn't worth the frustration. As for the toner, I just connected to another printer in a different wing and walked through a mile of cubicles anytime I needed to print something.
In search of my dignity, I asked others if they were having the same problems. Here are some of the answers I received.
- There are training classes available. Seriously? Do people really need a training session for a simple shopping type of application? We aren't talking about a never seen before technology here. This is a system where you buy stuff online, kinda like umm….I don't know….maybe Amazon, AOL, Yahoo, or any of the other gazillion sites out there. I don't recall attending training for any of those.
- You should get one of the office admins to do it. OK, so now I have to ask someone else to do something for me that I should be able to do myself in 2 minutes. Plus, this other poor soul is now subject to the same treacherous experience of using the system.
- You don't understand the complexities of an enterprise procurement process. Booyah! That is exactly right, but why I should I have to understand? I probably don't know enough about the entire procurement process including preferred vendors, G/L accounting, good receipts, etc., etc. Maybe if I could order a pen, I would jot down notes as you were enlightening me.
What I found funny was that from all the responses, not a single person told me that I was wrong and that the application was indeed simple and easy to use. Instead, I just got excuses of why it was the way it was. I had one expert tell me that our procurement process wasn't like Amazon where you can simply just go online, pick what you want, and purchase with a credit card. I responded with a simple, "why not?".
Sure, maybe I am naive due to my lack of knowledge of the big, bad, mean ol' enterprise process, but somehow I doubt that Amazon would agree that their business process is so simple. Amazon hides it's complexity from it's users. They make it as simple as possible on the surface, because from a customer's perspective, all you really want to do is buy a book. Do you really care about how Amazon's supply chain works, what standards they use to reduce their TCO, or the backend complexities of their rating and review system? If you had to worry about that stuff, then you would head on over to the local, physical bookstore like in ancient times. 
Incidentally, below is a picture of our printer about a month after the fiasco:
No, you aren't seeing triple, we now have four toner cartridges (three pictured in the box, plus one we already installed). We gave up and thought we had no success, but somehow we ended up with four. How's that for efficiency?
Unfortunately, this is typical of most ERP applications that we force upon our users. The tools we give them are over complicated and they will frustrate them to no end. Change is already challenging enough, so what happens when we force change that actually makes someone's life harder?
I want to start hearing my users tell me that they can't imagine having to go back to doing their job the old way. I want to hear them say that their new tool actually makes life better. I want them to smile at me and give me a high five when they see me in the hallway. It may sound funny, but why are these such impossible expectations? When it comes to simplicity in our enterprise applications, maybe it's time for all of us to be a little more naive and start asking "why not?".
-ewH
[UPDATE: It must be my lucky day, I just received an invitation via email to a 2-hour training session on some new "enhancements" to our online procurement system. I am so excited!]
[UPDATE - 4/27/07: I just received this email newsFLASH about our procurement system: To support the global roll-out of the eBuy on-line procurement tool, a number of technical changes go into effect today... Please take a moment to review the attached document outlining these changes... The attachment? Oh yeah, it was a 17 page PDF document!!! 1) I don't really give a flyin' flip about your global roll-out and 2) There's not a ice cube's chance in Africa that I am going to read through your stupid 17 page whatever the heck it is. Ironically, I received this same email four times within 11 minutes. Maybe I got one email for each toner cartridge that I received. Lucky I didn't order a case of pens or I would have reached my email storage limit.]
This blog covers all topics including personal experiences, thoughts, rants, etc. with a focus on technology and life in the blissful corporate world as an applications developer/solution architect aka Enterprise Geek.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Hey Ed,
Completely agree with where you are going with this. We need to have more "Simplicity Police" across all areas of software development.
Cheers,
Nigel
March 29th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Hi Edwardd. I'm a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and I wanted to talk to you about the project you did for the SAP blog with the Wiimote. I'm working on a story on the device. Could you give me a call back as soon as possible? My deadline's tomorrow. Thanks!
Best,
Jamin
Jamin Warren
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10281
212.416.4445
jamin.warren@wsj.com
March 30th, 2007 at 7:47 am
I forgot about the toner! Thanks for the laugh this morning. Enterprise apps ROCK.
Quack
March 30th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Damn Eddie….I forgot about the toner. I laughed so hard reading your retelling of the story. Thanks for the smile.
Look at you…Wall Street Journal…..
Congratulations on all the success.
Quack
March 31st, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Early on in my career, I developed user interfaces for enterprise applications. After a few months on the job, I realized that creating easy-to-use interfaces was MUCH harder than writing ones that were difficult to use. There's an analogy to the famous quote from Pascal: "Apologies for the length of the letter but I didn't have time to write a shorter one".
Since developers are always under the gun to meet a deadline, they often chose functionality over form. I assign some blame as well to product management types who rarely provide usuability guidelines in their MRD. Finally, while there are a plethora of books on "look and feel", there is precious little out that that describes good user interaction design. If you can afford to hire a consultant who specializes in this discipline, it will be well-worth your effort.
March 31st, 2007 at 8:59 pm
For anyone interested in the outcome of the comment above from Jamin Warren, I spoke to him on Friday for about 15 minutes. So if anything gets published about the Wii blog in the WSJ, I will let you know.
It seems that Jonathan and Nigel are on the same page. Maybe we do need to hire consultants whose job is interaction design aka the "Simplicity Police." That certainly has potential, but how do you measure one's success on that? How do you get around the potential for the same excuses like the ones above? I would be interested to hear of anyone's experiences with this type of role on a project.
Cheers,
ewH
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:51 am
Couldn't agree more about the simplicity discussion. However, I also find that many associate "simplicity" with "rigidity". I've found that having very flexible UI creation tools, allowing you to adapt the work process and UI to a specific use case, is what enables "simplicity".
Here's an add-on question to you all - 2D vs 3D user interfaces. While 3D is all about "sexy times" (to quote Borat), 2D is an order of magnitude easier to compose and somewhat easier to navigate. It begs the question, what is the "killer app" for enterprise apps in 3D that truly adds additional value, not just eye candy.
- Rick/SAP Research
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Hi Ed,
great article. I suggest that we start a world-spanning initiative with the motto "Eliminate a button everyday".
This is sort of what we've been doing to the applications being developed in my current project, and it's enhanced usability greatly.
Cheers,
Thorsten
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
@Rick: You pose an interesting question. In one aspect, it would seem that 3D user interfaces are the next evolutionary step, but then you also have another school of thought that tends to think that there needs to be a revisit of command line, text based (1D?) interfaces. Some people swear by command line because of it's efficiency and low overhead, but for new comers, there can be a steep learning curve. The question that is interesting is that can we revisit command line making it more simple, intuitive, and user friendly. So, I'm not sure that 3D is better than 2D is better than 1D. Maybe the answer in the end is that there is not one answer for everything or everyone. I would also be interested to hear others opinions on this. Perhaps a future blog entry?
@Thorsten: Awesome; that is a great initiative! Keep me updated how this increases user satisfaction. Have you released versions and then eliminate during later releases? It would be nice to observe if the users even noticed that the buttons were even missing.
Cheers,
ewH
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
hey Ed…
I personally think that the easiest (AND the most reliable) way to shop is to buy goods in stores. that way you can be sure you are getting What you want and When you want it. there will be no problems with filling out the forms