I have a vendor of HR and Time/Attendance software that does not have a clue when it comes to software usability.  Whenever we point out how difficult their software is to use, they are fond of telling us that these are “user training issues.”

Classic example: we were attempting to roll-out the first generation of their online employment application.  Employment candidates could not figure out how to save their entry.  It wasn’t apparent that the small floppy disk icon in the upper left corner was the submit button.  Firstly, the submit button should not be in the upper left.  Secondly, many of our candidates have never seen a floppy disk.

When we pointed this out they gave us response that has been programmed into their autonomic system since orientation: “That is a training issue.” Hello, these are people spread all across the country.  How do we train them to fill out a 5-minute application?

The fact is, you don’t need to train people on software that is designed well.  Nobody gets trained on eBay, or Monster, or Digg.  They are intuitive.  These organizations spend time watching how users interact with their tools and modify them based on what they learn.  If you are a software developer and you have the same people working on the presentation layer of the application as the logic layer you need to get a clue.  If you have an extra clue send it to me and I will forward it to my vendor.

This is an area where I have spent more evaluation time when considering a new purchase.  There is a huge cost to all of this user training that is completely unnecessary.  I would encourage IT leaders to make this a more heavily weighted portion of their evaluations going forward.

I am surrounded by people with good ideas.  I need more people that implement them well.