Users around the Globe Face the Same Hurdles - datango Corporation Highlights Solutions for Avoiding Software Pitfalls.

Usability of Business Software: Impediment to rollouts all over the world

BERLIN -- Successful deployment of a business application like SAP depends on its users. The best functionalities are invalidated if the user cannot operate them. A current technical article in the Financial Times USA, entitled "Lovely Software. But I Can't Work It", underscores this global problem. The datango corporation has faced up to this crucial issue and eliminates application conflicts of this type with its "datango performance suite" (dps) online help tool.

According to the Financial Times report, which refers to a study by Global Graphics, employees waste up to one hour every week because their business software is too difficult to use. And although manufacturers design their solutions to be as intuitive as possible, the functions required by a business application automatically mean a certain level of complexity is inevitable.

"A great deal is invested in employee training and dry runs before a piece of business software is rolled out, but problems generally surface later when it is used in practice. After initial training, users are usually left to their own devices," explains Rob Secontine, EVP Sales International, at the datango corporation. This is where the "datango performance suite" comes in. With navigation help, companies can offer their employees active support during live operation. It guides users through the screens, templates and dialogs to their goals - depending on their level of interaction with the process or application. Users receive detailed instructions regarding the next step that should be executed, and they can then ask for help precisely when it is needed.

At the same time, the navigation menu highlights those areas of the application with which users have the most difficulty - invaluable information for optimizing business processes and for further development of the actual application. The combination of object and process help, which can be accessed in every application and at any point in time, is the form of support that has proven to be the most effective for the user. In this way, users are trained "on the job", which reduces costs for training and user help desks. The productivity of the users and, therefore, the company can be increased, instead of recording enormous losses due to the usual conflicts in software operation.