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Bad systems; how to explain something complex; 'Frasier'
It’s been two months since my last email update - I explain why soon. Step back: every week, many hours are sucked from my life as I grapple with badly designed systems. Unclear, imprecise or wrong instructions. It wastes time (hence my recent lack of email updates). Result: today’s update comes from the heart. Not with love but anger. But it's not just a rant - there are suggestions too, including: "How to explain something complex".
On with bad systems. Here’s a question: to help a learner driver, you might say: “To go forward, press the accelerator; to go backwards, put the car in reverse gear.” Which bit of that might confuse the learner? Well, it depends. If someone knows what a car does (it gets us from (a) to (b)) – but not how to get it to do that, maybe ‘gear’ and ‘accelerator’ confuse.
BUT… if someone doesn’t even know what a car does (“does it do calculus? Drill holes?”), then everything confuses. “Why would I want to ‘go forward’? Why ‘go backward’?”. The person has no idea why a car exists, so isn’t yet ready to grasp how to use it.
I mention this because I’m increasingly asked by clients to sign up to their Invoice systems. If you wish to round up the Usual Suspects, try Ariba's system – but I struggle because I don’t even know why Ariba exists. What does it do? Etc. (As it is, I suspect Ariba is highly sophisticated and great if you’ve loads of invoices – but if you have one invoice for a one-off Clarity and Impact Course, it’s not a sledgehammer to crack a walnut… it’s a nuclear bomb to crack a walnut.)
Surely a website tells us why stuff exists? Dream on. Websites seem to be written by people that know it for those that mostly know it – and hence are no help to those that don’t know it. My job-hunting son often asked me: “ABC plc… its website talks about ‘solutions’, ‘global’, etc, but I've still no idea what it does – do you know?”.
Surely the system’s ‘Sign-Up’ Protocols guide us through it all (assuming, that is, we know why it exists...)? Hmmmm. IT systems demand we’re precise – they reject us if we enter wrong date formats - yet aren’t precise themselves. A webpage tells us to “Click to Register” and to “Upload an invoice”. But the next pages say: “Sign Up”, and “Create an invoice” (real examples, albeit not Ariba). Are they the same? Or different? Turns out both were the same. OK, each on its own isn't a big thing. Collectively they're debilitating.
Surely Help pages help? We’ve all seen it: “Thanks for your query – check our website for the answer”. But there’s thousands of pages. Find that needle in that haystack.
Surely lots of stuff is intuitive? OK, Apple-philes, look away… you see, I blame Apple (or Apple-philes) – they've redefined the word ‘intuitive’, and that legitimises bad practice. (Maybe I should do a pie chart to help explain this accusation... an Apple pie chart, perhaps.) If a trendline goes up, it’s increasing…. that’s intuitive. If an alarm rings, there’s a problem, so do something… that’s intuitive. If I buy an Apple Mac and can attend lessons at my local Apple Store on how to use it … that’s not intuitive. If it needs lessons, it’s not intuitive. ‘Intuitive’ now seems to mean: easy to do if you already know how to do it. A bit like quantum physics and playing the piano, I suppose… easy when you know how. And the postscript? I hated my Apple Mac and sold it pronto.
Time for four morals, a tip - and an offer, albeit with a sting in its tail. First, the morals:
1. Cut the waffle. Would it help if I told you I deliver ‘Communication Solutions’?
2. If writing a guide for users – protocols, click-on buttons, etc - test them on people who don’t know the system and who also like precision (‘upload ’… or ‘create’…?).
3. If something needs a helpline, manual or training Course, it’s unlikely to be intuitive. Please don’t pretend it is.
4. Be proportionate – do you need a nuclear bomb to crack a walnut?
The tip - how to explain something complex, e.g. how to explain cricket to, say, an American that’s unfamiliar with the game: don’t explain each bit in turn (“a bowler bowls an over at a batsman”). We can’t take it all in. Even if each bit makes sense, collectively it’s too much. By the time we get to, say, the sixth bit, we’ve forgotten the first five.
No. Instead, start with what the person knows and move forward step by step. To explain cricket to the American, start with baseball. To explain Ariba to, say, me, start with my bank account, e.g. “To pay two suppliers, you needn’t open two bank accounts – you open one and pay them both from it. So too with Ariba – to submit invoices to two clients that use Ariba, don't open two Ariba accounts – open one and submit both invoices from it”.
As it is, that last sentence is beyond my ken – I don’t know if it’s true or false. I'm that ignorant.
Which brings me to the offer. If you require me to use Ariba and are prepared to explain it to me in a conversation – why it exists, how it works, etc - I’ll give you a discount on the Course fee. It’ll mean that much to me. The discount is a one-off. That is, it’s available only to the first client that explains it all.
And the sting? Until then, I'll charge future clients a premium if they require me to use Ariba.
Time to lighten up - the Frasier clip: I like being precise – which is why I really like the bit in the TV sitcom Frasier where he and his brother attend a car mechanic evening class – the rest of the class seem able to change sparkplugs, yet the Frasier Brothers struggle. Click here and watch from 1 minute 40 seconds for one minute.
Stay tuned for next month, I’ve been sent a fabulously bad graph, it left me breathless. (It was done by a huge consultancy firm.)
Jon
P.S. Two years ago, a big bank sent me a goodwill payment when I pointed out errors in its instructions for its fancy new high-tech payment process (real errors, not typos). But they didn't send me anything when I pointed out one of its Procedure Manuals was wrong and that its staff weren't following it anyway (it was to do with ID checks - bank staff couldn't agree on what the rules were, so I asked to see the Manual... and that was wrong too).
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