As we have discussed on many of our earlier blogs, the key component of a successful user experience is to provide a one-stop shop so that your users are not in “hunt and peck” mode trying to find what they need. But this shouldn’t be news to anyone. Back in ancient times the Greeks created central marketplaces called agora’s, while in Rome they used the term forum. In other parts of the world it would be referred to as a souk (Arabic), bazaar (Persian), mercado (Spain), etc. One of the oldest covered markets in the world, that is still operational, is the Grand Bazaar in the great city of Istanbul (constructed in 1455/56).
The concept was simple. Don’t make the buyers (or the user as we say today) traipse all around the city/country when they needed to buy goods. Instead, have all the sellers come to one place to make life simple and quick for the buyers. This was the very origin of the concept of providing a great user experience. Who doesn’t love a good market!
Today, especially with the advent of the cloud, it may appear that the software industry has forgotten centuries old lessons. Data, content, and applications are scattered across the cloud-based stratosphere, and consumers are confused and frustrated that things are not where they belong and easily accessible.
Well, today we see a move in the right direction, and IntraSee is proud to be a part of that. Oracle will be announcing at OpenWorld this month that they will be combining four of their excellent cloud solutions into one fully integrated solution – the Content and Experience Cloud. Plus, they will also be enabling a vendor marketplace as part of that solution whereby other company offerings (and we will be one of them) will also be fully integrated. The ultimate one-stop shop/market place.
Please see the following video for more details, and also stop by and see us at OpenWorld this year.
We will be co-presenting with Oracle and providing more information on this collaboration during the following session:
Wednesday, Sep 21, 12:15 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. @ Moscone West – 2014
If you can’t attend OpenWorld or have any questions, please contact us below and we will be in touch.
At IntraSee we have a passion for implementing solutions that astonish and delight, and we enter each project with absolute confidence that it will be a resounding success. Oftentimes our clients will ask us why we are so sure about what we are doing, and the answer to that is simple: Usability Testing. Over many years we have conducted complex testing and analysis across many organizations and demographics world-wide. Based on those results we have baked that feedback into the things we do and the way we do them. Ultimately it’s the people using the solutions that determine how successful a project actually is. Not the people implementing the solution. You may have hit all your project goals in terms of scope, budget and timeline, but if people don’t like what you did, then the project was a failure.
The perfect example of this was exemplified by the Jurassic Park movies. On paper it was a fantastic idea – who wouldn’t want to visit a dinosaur park?! An earth-shatteringly, brilliant blend of technology and entertainment. Many years went into its development, all designed and built by the best scientific minds on the planet. All they then had to do was open the doors to the general public and reap the rewards of their innovation and genius. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, four movies later (only the first two of which had a remotely credible storyline) we discover that many things could go wrong. A singular lack of usability testing (repeated over and over again), led to the same outcome: failure (well, not box office failure, but you know what we mean). The lesson learned (if indeed it needed to be learned) is that as smart as we think we are, there’s no substitute for having “real people” validate our hypotheses. How you do that we’ll cover in a future blog, but for the time being let’s ponder how Jurassic Park imitates the real-life experience of implementing ERP software – in 10 easy to digest lessons. And, yes, it’s truly scary! Editorial note: Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm) got nearly all the best lines.
All projects begin with general excitement and great anticipation. Kickoff and initial design meetings tend to be stress free and filled with the hope that something great will happen. But what really matters is what happens when the go-live date occurs and your user base starts using the system for real. What you have to avoid at all costs is some kind of horrific reaction. With proper usability testing you can avoid that by learning all the relevant lessons early in the design/development cycle. Even if you are using an Agile methodology, if the only person providing feedback is the product owner, then you’re in big trouble.
The common mistake people make when implementing anything is to assume that more features and more stuff = a better chance of making people happy. Usability testing actually tells the opposite tale. What people really want is for you to make things easy for them. And, typically, that entails less things and less stuff.
This is a very true statement – there is no such thing as a perfect usability test. But you can dramatically improve the accuracy by minimizing interference with the subjects tested: such that you don’t end up “leading the witness” to false conclusions. That said, don’t get hung up on creating plans that you’ll never have the time or resources to implement. There’s actually many ways – low-fi and hi-fi – to conduct testing. What you are attempting to do is learn as much as you can, given limited time and resources. Don’t let perfection be your enemy. You may not be able to spend as much time as you’d like conducting usability testing, but you can do something. Be sure to make that a goal.
Don’t underestimate the power of common sense. Make sure at least one person on the implementation team has it. And, of course, make sure you listen to that person! Many ideas, while great on paper, don’t actually fly with “real people”. So, the more feedback you can get from those kind of people the better. And that can be tough sometimes. Avoid designing a solution that satisfies the needs of the squeakiest wheel.
The best part of usability testing is that there’s generally just a handful of people to see the results of a bad idea, whereas going live with that bad idea generally involves your entire organization. And that’s not good. Recovering from that impression will cost you more than getting it right the first time.
It may seem very obvious, but when people start using your ERP system, they generally want to do it in the shortest amount of time possible. They aren’t doing this for the fun of it. And, generally, they don’t even see it as part of their job description. Don’t disappoint them. Your job is to figure out how best to make this a good experience for them. So watch and learn. Observing an actual usability test done well can be massively edifying.
One “popular” alternative to real usability testing is to just roll things out to production, wait for people to start complaining, and then take some of those complaints and turn them into a new set of business requirements, which then get rolled out into a subsequent phase. The quotes are placed around the word popular for a reason. While this technique may be popular with the project team, it’s not quite so popular with everyone else in your organization. All you are doing is churning out a different set of mistakes on a periodic basis. And, usually, at great expense.
When it comes to ERP solutions, less is most definitely more. While you may be able to craft a 1000 word explanation that describes a certain HR policy on a landing page, you would be better advised not to. Make it concise and simple. Usability testing (and common sense) says that the more words there are, the less chance that someone reads them. And what happens in that situation is typically a call to the Help Desk. “Can you please explain the policy for ……”. Calls to the help desk are symptoms of a problem. When was the last time you called amazon.com to get advice on how to buy a book?
Things that may appear to be minor nuisances to you are, typically, major issues to “real people”. Don’t imagine for a second that they’ll be cool with them, because they won’t. Inconsistent use of fonts, badly worded labels, a mish-mash of navigation options, things not being where they should be, inaccurate search results, data scattered across multiple systems. They may all seem not a big deal to the testing team as they run through test scenarios for the umpteenth time. But try telling that to an already busy manager trying to complete a transaction.
The worst thing about never taking “real people” into account when implementing ERP solutions is that eventually you will train people to never trust you. No matter how many times you tell them that the next version will solve all their issues, they’ll never believe it. And they’d be right not to. It’s very rare in life that we stumble across the perfect way to do anything. Only by truly listening and observing can we ever hope to improve the way we do anything. And then, once we think we have learned something, we need to test that hypothesis. And that’s the essence of Usability Testing.
If you would like to talk more about usability in your project, drop us a note and we would love to connect.
Series three of one of our favorite shows, Silicon Valley, recently ended. Not only is this show quite humorous, it often provides a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the software industry.
The overall theme to the season is that a team of brilliant developers are attempting to create and productize a revolutionary piece of software which they call “The Platform”. As expected, the team runs into obstacles at every turn until finally, towards the end of the season, the decision is made, only after getting feedback from beta users, that the platform is ready to be released to the public. The problem is that the beta user population is primarily comprised of their friends in the tech business!
Gilfoyle and The Platform’s Backend
Immediately, the buzz about the team’s success is on every news channel. The Platform is downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. Everything appears to be going better than anyone could have ever expected. That is, until we find out that while there are half a million downloads in a short period, only a trivial portion of those who downloaded the software are actually using the platform.
As it turns out, people weren’t using the software because they couldn’t figure it out. The users just didn’t get it. And by users, we don’t mean a niche group of techies, but the everyday software user. The developers didn’t find it important to try and understand their users and how they would interact with The Platform. The UX was not even an afterthought. Instead they put all their focus on the UI (User Interface). While The Platform was shiny and new looking, and looked very “cool”, it actually made no sense to the actual person using it.
At IntraSee, this is something that we see every day in Enterprise Applications. An enormous amount of energy is spent building out the backend and creating complex interfaces that address every situation. Often these implementations or upgrades take all the focus. Sometimes there will be some focus on the UI, in the mistaken belief that in having pretty software, you also will have usable software. That rarely is the case (for an explanation of the difference between UI and UX see our article on the difference.
The problem is that real users end up wildly dissatisfied with these applications. The applications are not intuitive. They require thick reference manuals or worse, to sit in classes for hours, just so they can figure out how to accomplish their everyday tasks.
Focus group of real users
As we know, art imitates life. No matter how incredible the software platform is, if people can’t use it, you’re just throwing money down the drain.
We have seen, time and time again, that putting the user first is the single most important investment that can be made in an application. A great UX leads to much higher adoption rates, which leads to a successful implementation, happy employees and cost savings. All of this builds confidence by your management which leads to funding for the next project.
At IntraSee, we have decades of experience investigating and evolving the UX. We understand how users interact with software and we don’t source our focus groups from our friends in the bay area! We actually travel the world working with real people in real situations. We’re passionate about ensuring that your users just get it.
And when your users just get it, the return on your investment is all but guaranteed. Let us show you what a great UX is so that you can understand what we have known for years:
The UX cannot be an afterthought.
Being an airline pilot isn’t easy. There’s literally hundreds of things you have to constantly monitor in order to make sure you didn’t miss something important. That’s why it takes thousands of hours of training.
ERP systems are very similar to planes in many respects. The hull is usually made by one manufacturer, but almost all the components come from different vendors and then get plugged together in order to create an operable plane. And, of course, each component is a potential point of failure and maintenance. So to accommodate this there’s a dial in the cockpit for each component, and the pilot is trained to know where to look and what to look for. Most of the time there’s nothing of value to see, but the information keeps coming and coming. Miss something, and bad things happen.
Notably, neither Google nor Apple make planes. If they did there wouldn’t be hundreds of dials in a plane. There would be one. And each component would plug into a notification framework that alerted the pilot only when there was something to do, or something worth seeing.
All you have to do is to look at your smartphone to know this is true. Thousands of apps, one notification framework, one place to look for them.
For many people, using an ERP system sometimes feels like flying a plane. So many things to do, so many places to check – but with no training. It’s no wonder people are frustrated, confused, and that so many things get left undone.
Imagine an ERP system where there was one place to go to see what needs to be done? Wouldn’t that be something.
Unfortunately, software makers went the same route as airplane manufacturers on this, and what resulted was the alert, the notification, the icon badge, the worklist item and more. A cacophony of dials. Information overload, scattered across multiple systems and dashboards.
It’s become apparent that the industry has swung too far to the extreme when it comes to notifying the user. Now every application has its own alerts or worklist. There are so many of them and they are never in a single location. People have been desensitized and now the alert/worklist has lost its meaning (kind of like the car alarm). That is bad for all of us. How do we get back to the promise of a simple, single, to do list?
An all too familiar scene from Dilbert
Traditionally PeopleSoft uses the Worklist to communicate and track action items for its users. With the latest PeopleTools release, Oracle has introduced something called the “Events and Notifications Framework”. You may have seen screenshots where the labels “Actions” and “Alerts” are used as pictured below. This is all part of the Fluid notification center located under a Flag icon in the header, and adds yet another cool feature for notifying people of things they need to be aware of. And, of course, adds to the challenge of providing a one-stop shop for all notifications.
PeopleSoft Fluid Events and Notifications
So let’s try to clear up the confusion a bit. Many PeopleSoft applications publish workflow. This is a piece of work needing attention from a user. Classic examples are approvals of time off, new job requisitions, employee transfers, and so on. Any workflow item can now be shown as an “Action” in the new PeopleTools’ Notifications. In addition, admins can push ad-hoc FYI items, applications can push FYIs, and AWE can even push an FYI. Not confusing at all now, right? 😉
As of this writing, the PeopleTools Event and Notification framework isn’t deeply documented, but this is just the early days of this feature. Modules like ePay Mobile and Absence Management are using it in 9.2, but there really isn’t enough documentation today to easily build your own notifications. However, it is a very useful tool and if used properly, can add a lot of value.
One problem is that too many things are alerting us these days. We are all beginning to suffer from Notification Fatigue. It has been reported that the famed 2013 Target Hack actually triggered some alerts in the security admin’s consoles. The problem was that there were so many alerts, the admins had begun to tune them out!
The first step is what we call Alert discipline. Not everything needs to be an alert. This is a classic case of less is more. Once you get your Alert discipline down, the critical next step is to consolidate all alerts and worklists into one place. That is why we built our Alerts & Global Worklist products. They can be deployed in tandem offering the best experience or alone for specific client needs. Now employees, managers, students and faculty can easily see what they have to do and they don’t have to hunt for it. If people know there is one list, they are more likely to stay on top of that list. Linking to a half dozen worklists just doesn’t work.
Even though PeopleTools’ Event and Notification framework is not widely used today we fully expect it to get a lot of usage in the future. Therefore, we are announcing native integration for it in our IntraSee Alerts and Global Worklist products. Now IntraSee Alerts & Global Worklist deliver on the promise of a one-stop shop for notifications and workflow. When your users log into your site, any alert or worklist item from any PeopleSoft or Cloud system will be shown in a single, consolidated list.
All notifications in one place
All workflow in one place
Having one place to go will make usage of your ERP systems as simple as using a smartphone. To see a live demo, please contact us and we’d be happy to show you.
It’s very tempting to look at any new object that sparkles and shines, and assume that it must have other inherently redeeming qualities. But, as Shakespeare once stated, “all that glitters is not gold”. And Jeff Bezos of Amazon followed that up with, “A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last”.
While form without function may dazzle in the sales cycle, it’s function that wins out in the long run. But if you can add form to that function, then all the better. That’s what makes for a winning combination.
Workday is an interesting example of the shiny object that doesn’t quite match up to what a good user experience should be. Yet, it tantalizes many, and is often under consideration as a replacement for organizations currently running PeopleSoft. While jumping to what some refer to as PeopleSoft 2.0 may sound like an attractive proposition, the world has changed enough over the past few years that it’s worth considering what may be cheaper and better alternatives.
1. Return on Investment (ROI)
You’ve already invested a huge amount of money in your PeopleSoft (and other) systems. But have you yet seen a full ROI on that outlay? If not, then now would not be the time to scrap everything you’ve spent so much on, and go all in on what would be a completely brand new implementation. And remember, it is not just an implementation, but also what could be building hundreds of new integrations. Workday is not a cheap solution, and can cost in the nine USD figures (not a typo) just to get it up and running. For a lot less money you may be a better off looking at ways you can increase your ROI in your current systems. Let’s face it, if the paint is peeling on your front door, your first inclination isn’t to emigrate to another country, find a new job, and build a new house. Home improvement is popular for a reason. It allows you to make the most of your money while living the lifestyle you want. Software is just the same. If you know what you are doing, and you have the proper tools, then you can create a brand new User Experience that leads to a fully utilized enterprise system that allows you to finally maximize your ROI.
2. It’s risky
OK, so imagine you did decide that emigrating to another country (one you’ve never been to), searching for a new job, and building a new house is the way you want to go. Well, first thing you need to do is explain that to your spouse. And their likely response will be, “Isn’t that risky? Can’t we just pop down to Home Depot and buy some paint instead?”. And the answer of course is yes. Starting fresh, and abandoning everything you ever knew, is very risky indeed. And the more complex an organization you are, the riskier it is. Balancing risk/reward/ROI may lead you to a different decision. And if you can solve your problems at a fraction of the cost, and with almost no risk, isn’t that a better way to go?
3. It’s not fully mature
How long has PeopleSoft been around? Forever, right? Well, technically since 1987. But in the software world, that’s pretty much forever. And guess what? There are still new features and functionality being added to it each year. Oracle has done a great job keeping on top of things and expanding functionality to meet demand. So that’s almost 30 years of development. Building a mature ERP system takes decades. It’s a colossal undertaking. For Workday to catch up to all that development will take many years, if ever, before they can match PeopleSoft feature for feature. Building a nice UI is the easy part. And, in the PeopleSoft world, the easiest thing to fix.
4. There’s more to an ERP system than a pretty face
There’s no doubt that Workday has attractive features. And at first glance it does catch the eye. But Workday is like a phone I bought only a couple of months ago. On paper it looked great. The specs were awesome, the pictures looked gorgeous. The only problem was, when the user picks it up it becomes a disaster. Way too big for the hand to hold, massively slippery, overly sensitive touch screen, is a fingerprint magnet, and cracks into pieces when dropped just 24 inches from the ground. It’s a UX nightmare. But it is extremely pretty (if you can ignore the cracked glass). This is the core problem with a company that understands the UI really well, but falls short on UX.
5. It’s not focused on the complete user experience
As Owen Wilson wistfully said in Wedding Crashers, “I think we only use 10% of our hearts”. ERP systems (and Workday falls into this trap) are kind of the same. Out of the box they don’t satisfy the complete user experience. Just a small fraction. How it’s implemented, and the tools provided, are the key to unlocking the real potential of an ERP system. In fact, the whole concept of an “ERP system” is typically something less tangible than people would like to admit. For most organizations the ERP system is really an eco-system of multiple ERP systems that the user is somehow expected to navigate and comprehend as one system (like the universe). Unfortunately, the human brain is not wired that way (unless you’re Stephen Hawking), which leads to massive under-utilization of the true potential that ERP systems could provide. Owen Wilson was right. 10% is a pretty accurate number.
6. It’s a blind alley
One of the great things about PeopleSoft is that if you don’t like certain areas of functionality, you can just plug something else in instead. Not happy with the recruiting module: plug in Taleo. Prefer a more modern Talent Planning module: plug in Oracle’s Fusion solution. Etc. It’s awesome. Like going to Burger King and ordering a burger with no lettuce, but with McDonalds fries. Hey, if that’s how you like it. That’s not how Workday works. Once you enter the Workday world you can plug in other vendor solutions, but only where Workday thinks they have a gap, and only with the vendors that Workday partners with. And the impression they give is that as they build out their functionality in future years, that support of these vendors will gradually disappear, until all that’s left is Workday. And that’s the end of the alley, and where all your data is locked up.
7. It lacks a portal
So why does Workday miss the mark so badly? Simple. It has no Portal. Without a portal, you are stuck in the silo of Workday. Providing an elegant user experience can only be achieved via a portal. No portal = bad user experience. Workday does provide a nice UI (note: read more about the difference between UX and UI) – but that’s not enough!
8. It’s rigid
In 1974 Burger King rocked the fast food world with the revolutionary, “Have it your way” tagline. Since then people have come to expect that whatever it is they want, they can have it their way. Custom skins on their phone, substitutions when ordering dinner (“hold the broccoli”), custom paint colors for the house, custom news feeds, custom cabinets for the kitchen. With Workday you can’t have it your way. You’ll have it the Workday-way. Try explaining that to your user base. Remember how many years and countless hours you spent getting PeopleSoft, and everything else, just to your users liking? Well, now you’re going to have to sit down with them and explain that from now on they’ll be ordering from the menu. With no substitutions! And if they don’t like mustard on the burger, well, they’ll just have to start liking it. Because that’s how it comes.
9. It won’t integrate with your corporate systems
All organizations have their own eco-system of internal systems that gradually morphed and developed over the years. We can’t just pretend they don’t exist. And if people are using these systems (which they must be) then that makes them part of the usability experience, and they need to be brought into the fold like everything else. Let’s call this Exhibit B in the case for why everyone needs a good portal. And until Workday has one, then they are missing the boat.
10. There’s a better way to solve your problems
Without wishing to be boastful, we at IntraSee have solved the UX conundrum. And we’ve solved it for complex global organizations using multitudes of different ERP systems. And this isn’t just sales talk. This isn’t a hypothetical resolution. This is practical and demonstrable. If you’d like to see a demo of how we can change your world at a tiny fraction of the cost of what it would take to go to Workday, then let us know. We’d be happy to show you.
Editorial note: May 1st, 2019:
It’s almost two years now since Workday announced more details on what their “intent” to open up their platform would actually mean. So, what’s the status now?
After the passage of two years, we were hoping to see much more progress in this area. Unfortunately, as of today, Workday appears to have made almost no progress. On their developer.workday.com web site, they advertise limited availability to be one of the first to be able to use their PaaS platform.
Limited Availability: This exclusive program gives you the opportunity to be one of the first organizations using the Workday Cloud Platform. Create business-impacting applications leveraging Workday’s technology. Help influence our roadmap.
– developer.workday.com
Also, and maybe a lot more concerning, Workday’s participation in the AI revolution and the new era of disruption appears to be stalled in the chatbot realm too. If you go to www.workday.com and search for chatbot, you get zero results. Whereas if you go to www.oracle.com and perform the same search, you get over 1,100 results. That’s a massive differentiation. One company appears to still be focused on back office activity in the Cloud, whereas the other is fully on board, and already equipped, for the AI revolution in Enterprise software.
Editorial note: November 20, 2017, Workday announced more details on what their “intent” to open up their platform would actually mean.
“Right now what we’re seeing is what I’d call small pieces of additional functionality rather than applications that have a larger purpose. So the potential impact is limited. You can bring whatever code you want but, we curate and certify everything that goes into that platform and will continue to do so. We have to because we have a responsibility to ensure that customers remain compliant”.
“We are approaching verticalization and extensions differently to others. We are curating everything and will discuss our plans with partners so that there is a clear line between the areas we will enter and those where our partners will have a free run”
– Aneel Bhusri
The bolded comments are the ones we feel are most pertinent. In the new age of digital disruption: agility and innovation are the key requirements of any organization. Without these things, you cannot adapt. Having an Enterprise system that requires curation and certification will be an impediment to clients and partners ability to provide the UX that their organizations want. And in this new world of digital disruption and transformation, this will be a major inhibitor to progress. Certainly, with the rise of chatbots as the new UI, organizations need the ability to adapt to these changes, and should not risk being forced to go through a curation and certification process. Or, even worse, be told, “no, you can’t do that”.
Editorial note: July 11, 2017 Workday announced:
“Today, we are ready to take a big step forward on our extensibility journey by announcing our intent to open our platform” and is “entering the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) market”.
The key word here is “intent”. And from a practical perspective the obvious questions are:
Time will tell. But clearly it’s far too early to say that Workday has a PaaS platform until we truly see it being used, and, more importantly, being used successfully.
But, as has been said many times. The first step in the path to recovery is to recognize you have a problem. At least Workday is finally owning up to the fact that to be considered a real Enterprise SaaS vendor, you also need to be a real Enterprise PaaS vendor. But the other pillar to be being a true Enterprise player is that you really also need to be a real Enterprise IaaS vendor too. And that’s a very expensive proposition indeed.
