Making Applications Easier to Use Will Increase Their Usage

Implications: Making applications easier to use will help increase the breadth and depth of their deployment within an organization.  Applications that allow user collaboration are also likely to see increased usage, especially in organizations that encourage interdepartmental cooperation rather than departmental rivalries.  In many situations, especially among nontechnical users, an application is judged by its user-interface.  Users who have positive experiences with the social networking features of new applications will become evangelists for these applications.

Analysis: While vendors of enterprise applications often focus on their products technical capabilities, their ability to integrate with other software in the prospect's organization, and the benefits that the solution provides, many end users judge an application by its ease-of-use and "friendliness" of its user interface. 

Although the well-known adage, "don't judge a book by its cover" has generally proven to be true, many users, especially those who do not appreciate the technical details of a software solution or even how the solution contributes to their company's overall profits, judge the worth of a software application by its user interface. After all, if an application is easy to use, and due to an intuitive interface, requires only minimal training, there will be less resistance to using the application and the breadth and depth of its deployment will increase within an organization.

While some users, for example those whose jobs are almost purely data entry related, are satisfied with merely being able to enter the required data into the system (and after using the system for a while probably only glance at their screens!) many other users are involved in real-time interactions  (for example in a call center)  with customers and prospects, and the ability to employ social networking services to seek more information or collaborate with others to resolve a customer issue or overcome a prospect objection, is invaluable. It is these users who will tell others about their positive experiences and help these software solutions gain additional traction within (and external to) their organizations.

Oracle's new business applications are about more than ease-of-use and collaboration, they are also about using data mining and predictive analytics across both internal and external sources to increase sales productivity.  This however, is a potential topic for another blog.