It's All About the User, Stupid!

Let me make a less-than-bold statement: the most important part of software is the user. So why am I on this subject, you ask? Don't I sell 'Enterprise Web 2.0' software? That's Ajax, SOA, mashups, etc., right? Sure enough. But I sell software that supposed to empower users.

I've just finished reading a great blog ‘The Peoples Interface Awards' that drives this point home. It's a nice and concise recap of how important the ‘human interface design' is in how users perceive systems (and their IT department).

As a software provider in an industry that makes the web more interactive (and, presumably, more user-friendly), we see the results of bad and good web interfaces every day. Stealing a phrase from James Carville, we often make the statement that 'Its All About the User, Stupid'. In fact, it is such a popular topic in our industry that we've even held webcasts on it.

The issue with this issue is that it is 'soft and fuzzy', without many hard metrics for tangible, bottom-line ROI. Sure, we have examples. We've seen good improvements in customer conversion statistics for e-commerce applications were the ‘Web 1.0' interface was poorly built. But such stats from a vendor like JackBe could be viewed as biased (as we did the work). So it's great to see that this issue is being given some CIO-level attention.

Long live the user.