Your Software Tools :: Form vs. Function

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Permalink Reply by Kerry Smith on August 21, 2008 at 8:32am

Features are most important, because if the software doesn't solve a problem or help you work more efficiently, then why buy it? "Sleekness" is secondary, but not unimportant. You want a product that users will want to use, and good design interface, etc. is key to adoption and usage. When we're considering a technology/software purchase, we start with the features list, usually on the company's website, then we look for online demos or webcasts that provide an overview of functionality. If we like what we see, then we reach out for a live conversation.

Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 22, 2008 at 2:10pm

Surprisingly, we're "B and A" ... sleekness/Look and feel... all the way and even more so in todays "web 2.0" web app culture.

Why form over function? Well, it's not really the form part of it ... it's the intuitiveness. An application may have all the functions in the world, but if I can't get my team or clients to use any of the features, then they don't really mean a whole to us.

I definitely think function is extremely important, I mean after-all, the application needs to do what we need it to do but more importantly, our staff needs to be able to use it.

It seems everyday a new host of online web apps are launched that surprisingly do very little. But what they do do, they do extremely well and are exceptionally intuitive. And since online application trends are continuing to become more-and-more friendly towards mash-ups and API integration into other online software applications, it's become easier-and-easier to customize your own application workflows by daisy-chaining multiple online apps together.

In the end, I'd MUCH rather have one application that can do it all. It definitely makes everything easier, but that application has to be user-friendly, inviting and very intuitive.

In terms of purchasing path, we follow the exact same path as Kerry.

Permalink Reply by David Cardillo on September 23, 2008 at 10:37pm

1. c) when I look for any software it's to solve a particular need. Quite often it's the automation of something time consuming or tedious. So I usually start from the features list, but I'm often the one who went looking for them - in other words, I didn't come across a nifty description on versiontracker.com and say, "hey, that sounds neat."

Then comes the look and feel. I've used some pretty bare bones, unintuitive packages, but they did exactly what I wanted with minimal configuration. I don't care how shiny it is if I have to read a 50 MB manual to get it to do what I want.

At my job, I'm often considered the guy who can do the funky, tricky stuff with layouts. When in reality I'm the one who read a bunch of how-to sites, installed a bunch of scripts, extensions, and [unauthorized] software to save me endless clicking.

The real trick to getting anyone to purchase any software is convincing them they need to use it. I still see people writing notes about individual pieces of art (author, licensing, model release, etc.) by hand on paper, only later lamenting the "extra work" they have to do entering that same data into an asset management database. No amount of showing them how to ascribe a meta data template to a drive full of images (while simultaneously cataloging the contents) can convince them it's better than their notepad, because when it comes down to it, the notepad is easier for them to use.

Permalink Reply by Joshua Thomas on September 24, 2008 at 12:11am

I'm 110% on the same page as you, David. I'm typically in a very similar position except as a vendor, I also have to evaluate whether or not our team members and affiliates would actually use it and more importantly ... would our customers actually use it.

More often then not, they would rather FedEx us their notepad and have us "do what we want" with it.