A while back I linked to a favourite software development analogy of mine -broken windows. Yesterday I encountered an example of this theory that caused a manager to almost give up.
The company I’m currently consulting with has developed a hardware and software package that allows detailed analysis of complex data. The user interface for the software contains many quirks that make it challenging for first-time or casual users. One of the company’s managers was talking to me in general about the difficulty of getting these problems sorted out and specifically about an import screen in which the user is asked if she wants to “split” the data even though splitting is necessary in 95% of cases. It is quite common for users to not check the split option which results in unintuitive behaviour.
The manager said that its not really worth fixing the “split screen” since there are other things just as confusing all over the system. I guess, using the analogy, he was saying that there’s no use fixing this one broken window since there are another dozen or so broken on the other side of the building.
There isn’t a moral to this story or a happy ending (yet).
Hi Michael, Welcome back! I was contemplating an email to see where you’d got to.
BTW: I’m on holiday in Ireland at the moment. I lived here for three years at the end of the 90s. It was grotty then, but a few years ago the govt put a tiny tax on plastic bags bought from shops and this seems to be the first step in tidying up the whole country. The number of bags purchsed has plummetted, the number chucked or dumped has plummetted, and the number lining the streets has plummetted too. Its more than that the though: the place just looks so so much cleaner.
Anyway, welcome back.