New Software Tools — Not Like Classic Cars!

December 6th, 2010

Do you know anyone that owns a classic car?  They probably don’t drive it much, usually only a few km a year to go exhibit at a local car show or maybe even just a few meters a year to load on and off a trailer to transport to car shows.  The classic car is thus not used day-to-day for regular transportation needs, it has only specialized use.

Why the classic car reference?  Well, some software tools that are intended to be used day-to-day end up being used only for specialized purposes.  We think this happens because people have spent years doing things they way they do and would like to stick to ‘old reliable’ processes except where it is blatantly obvious that the new tools is best suited for a particular job.  The possible return to the company of the affected software tools is drastically reduced by this behavior, since the benefits of the tools are only experienced on occasional jobs instead of all possible jobs the software tool can benefit the company by being used on.

Some folks see a demo of DraftLogic Electrical or are trained on it and then assume that DraftLogic Electrical is suitable only for specific purposes…kind of like that classic car.  Well, today I write to let you know that we designed DraftLogic Electrical to provide you advantages on almost every kind of project.

DraftLogic Electrical has six phases of amazing automation:  automated room creation, automated electrical device placement, automated circuiting, automated branch circuit wiring, automated floor plans/reports/schedules, and automated export of the entire project into ConEst IntelliBid.  What we occasionally fail to communicate is that each of these phases of automation is completely separate and that the data needed for any of the subsequent steps can be generated using other tools that we supply.  So, for example, a user can manually prep the architect drawing for use with DraftLogic Electrical, place the electrical systems devices using our tool palettes, and use the Circuit Manager to manually complete all the circuiting.  DraftLogic Electrical sees all this completely manually created data as the same as data created by all the automated phases.  Subsequent automation works just fine with the manually created data, allowing users to take advantage of the automated branch circuit wiring, automated floor plans/reports/schedules, and automated export of the entire project into ConEst IntelliBid–regardless of how the devices were placed in the drawing and circuited.

And by the way, our ‘manual’ tools are not very manual!  DraftLogic Electrical devices know whether they are wall, ceiling,  or floor mounted and automatically snap and rotate to reference locations like walls and tbar cells.  Tools like auto reload and high volume move and copy tools vastly reduce the number of mouse clicks and keystrokes necessary to get the electrical devices you need into the drawing.  DraftLogic Electrical does not do absolutely everything for you and there are some things that we have not attempted to automate, namely high voltage applications and large industrial design needs. The key thing to understand is that even with projects where you will need to use your current tools DraftLogic Electrical can still integrate nicely with that project and deal with all the areas we do well. Any electrical loads, lights, receptacles, motors, panels, special outlets and auxiliary systems we handle efficiently, accurately and effectively.

After training new users on how to take best advantage of our revolutionary building electrical systems design software, DraftLogic Electrical, we know that it is absolutely vital that they use it as much as possible in order for the the training to have been useful.  There is a direct and strong relationship between familiarity with a software tool and the benefit that one can gain from it.  So even in the very unlikely scenario where using DraftLogic Electrical has the same productivity as your current processes in doing a project, there is benefit in using it due to the experience that the designer gains, thus improving performance on subsequent projects.

Are there needs you have on a project and you are not sure how DraftLogic Electrical can meet them?  Call or email me and if I can’t show you how DraftLogic Electrical can meet that need now, our development team will quickly add the needed functionality!

Kindest Regards,

Dean Whitford
Chief Operating Officer
DraftLogic Electrical
dwhitford@draftlogic.com

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DraftLogic Electrical October 14, 2010 Release Notes

October 14th, 2010

Catching up on some blog postings!

The DraftLogic Electrical development team has been hard at work for four months & has prepared a most excellent new release for you!  This release includes the usual bug fixes but more importantly includes a number of your requests brought to life.  In addition, motor protection and feeder selection is now completely compliant with standard CEC and NEC requirements for motors.

Here is a list of the more important changes in this release versus our last major release in June 2010.  Please call (Dean @ 780-906-2888) or email (dwhitford@draftlogic.com ) if you have any questions or would like to get a quick WebEx walk-through of the new features.  We can schedule a session to occur at your convenience; I expect we’ll cover everything new in 30-60 minutes.

1. A link to ConEst IntelliBid has been added such that users can now transfer detailed Bill of Materials data into their ConEst IntelliBid software to vastly speed up the estimating process—we remove any need for counting, measuring, and scaling.  Please let any electrical contractors you work with know of this in case they are using IntelliBid and want to shave immense person hours and risk off their estimating time.

2. The Automated Branch Circuit Wiring has been migrated to be compatible with AutoCAD 2006/7/8/9/10/11 (all 32 bit).  We are including it as a beta release in this version. [2011/11/11 note:  Automated Branch Circuit Wiring is now compatible with all platforms that DraftLogic Electrical supports, including 64 bit versions of AutoCAD.]

3. Preliminary testing has been completed with 32 bit AutoCAD 2011 & all DraftLogic Electrical functions tested OK.  You can thus use this release with any and all of AutoCAD 2006/7/8/9/10/11 (all 32 bit), plus any of Autodesk’s vertical products that are based on these versions, like Autodesk Map or AutoCAD MEP. [2011/11/11 note:  DraftLogic Electrical now supports 32bit AutoCADs from 2006 to 2012 & 64 bit AutoCADs from 2010 to 2012.]

4. Enhanced motor protection selection in both Automated Circuiting and in the Circuit Manager to come into compliance with standard CEC and NEC requirements for motors.  Now motor protection selection is completely automatic.  There are, of course, a complete set of user overrides available for you to select protection size and type that differ from that which would be selected by standard electrical code calculations (e.g. for special situations, whether covered in the electrical code or not).

5. Enhanced the Load Calculator (which runs in advance of any schedule depending on having current loads for its calculations) to include motors classified as ‘large’ so that feeders are automatically selected for large motors in compliance with standard CEC and NEC requirements for motors.

6. Enhanced both motor protection selection and motor feeder selection to be able to rely on any single one of:  MCA, FLA, HP, or load.  The user now needs supply only one of these elements and DraftLogic Electrical will factor the rest out.  This is improved versus our prior motor support which was reliant on HP.

7. Added project parameter for user to specify the exact FLA cut-off to use to determine small versus large motor treatment for each motor.  Small motors will be powered by the branch circuit panel that is powering receptacles in their area, large motors will circuit as per the project setting telling DraftLogic Electrical where to power large motors from.  Small motors will also consider grouping with receptacles and other small motors for circuiting (with user control from next two enhancements listed) whereas large motors will always circuit alone.

8. Added project parameter to allow user to specify whether small motors can circuit in with receptacles circuits in their area or not.

9. Added project parameter to allow user to specify whether small motors should always circuit alone or not.  Supersedes the prior project parameter if ‘No’ is selected.  If the prior project parameter is ‘No’ but this one is ‘Yes’, small motors will not circuit together with receptacles but will circuit together with other small motors if feasible.

10. Enabled project parameter for forcing all connections to have a bonding conductor if user desires.

11. Enabled project parameter for forcing all bonding/grounding conductors to be copper if user desires.

12. Enabled project parameter to user force, if desired, all in/under-slab conduit to have a bonding conductor regardless of whether such conduit is metallic or non-metallic.  This parameter is superseded by #6 if it is set to ‘Yes’.

13. Added project parameter for user to specify if full load of transformer should be carried up to its parent and all distribution above it in the power tree or just the actual load on the transformer.

14. Split new ‘kitchen’ load type out for load calculations.

15. Restructured panel schedule footer calculations to include motor loads in compliance with CEC and NEC.

16. Added completely automatic support for NEC demand factors to panel schedule footer calculations in addition to CEC diversities.  NEC demand factor support includes the tiered demand factors applied as per NEC sections 220.42, 220.44, and 220.56.

17. Added support for five kinds of protection types to be assigned via the Attribute Editor and Circuit Manager and to be faithfully represented on the Single Line Diagram and in the Bill of Materials:  molded case circuit breaker, fused disconnect, air drawout breaker, combination mag/starter fused, and combination mag/starter breaker.

18. The Drawing Mapping process has been enhanced to gracefully handle blocks with no start/end.  These result from drawing corruption or by being placed in a drawing by another custom application that intends on using them to store information.

19. The CU tables have had a number of additions made & have had their titles reviewed and standardized.  In addition, all luminaires have been gone through to ensure that a suitable CU has been selected for them.  The detailed CU tables are included with this shipment for your reference when selecting a CU table for a new luminaire you are adding to the Luminaire Library.  Note that for spaces of ‘near rectangular’ shape, DraftLogic Electrical’s zonal cavity calculation for determining luminaire quantities is near exact to the rounded number of luminaires that result from a complete and much more time intensive AGI  analysis.

20. An issue has been corrected where the Wattage per ft2 report and function within AutoCAD were including luminaires that touched the space selected by the user in any way (i.e. including just having one of their visible attributes touch or go inside the boundary line).

21. The Wattage per ft2 report has been enhanced to process and report the rooms and floors in their numeric order.

22. The Wattage per ft2 report has been enhanced to drastically reduce the time it required to be generated.

23. The Annotation Organizer has been optimized to run much faster than before and with less network load on the database.

24. Numerous little gremlins, trolls, goblins and various other evil creatures (aka bugs) living in the source code have been ferreted out and sent back to the magical lands where they are supposed to live.

 

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Technology Adoption Recommendations

April 27th, 2010

FOSTERING A SMOOTH TRANSITION

We all know that change is hard. Sometimes people make it harder by resisting change rather than embracing it…even if the change is to their benefit! Try some of these tips for maximizing adoption and minimizing resistance when you roll out change in your organization:

  • Demonstrate the benefits of the new tool to all affected & back it up with explanation of benefits to other staff for groups like IT that may not see direct benefit. The benefit to the company may sway some staff, but many will need to see benefit for themselves or their coworkers to buy-in.  Staff may benefit from the adoption of the new tool, for example, by becoming more valuable to the company—higher productivity, increased deliverables, and fewer errors all tie directly to higher revenue per employee & better customer satisfaction.  Staff that become experts  in the use of the new tool will drastically outperform those who are not—increasing the expert’s relative value within the company and thus their job security. By freeing staff from repetitive, low knowledge required tasks, staff will be able to increase their knowledge and skills in electrical design’s finer and more complex areas of knowledge.
  • An internal ‘evangelist’ for the new tool, i.e. a positive and knowledgeable person, will go far in preventing other staff from becoming frustrated with new tools and giving up or turning negative. Some refer to such a person as a ‘change artist’. We recommend that your most positive minded, change embracing, and experienced designer be trained first in the use of the new tool.  If the person has the traits mentioned, they will highly likely naturally slip into the role of internal evangelist. If reasonably feasible, reward this person for being first, being positive, and for making the adoption of the new tool a success—the rewards need not be monetary.
  • If involved from the very beginning in purchase and implementation planning, staff will be more amenable to the necessary process and standards changes that will affect how they work. Let staff know of the new tools on a timely basis, i.e. prepare them well in advance of the changeover so they don’t feel surprised or that their opinion on the changeover process was ignored. To increase buy-in, involve staff in planning the adoption process and in identifying what processes and standards will need to change.
  • There will be staff that resist the adoption of the new tools, you likely have run into their resistance on any types of changes initiated over their time with the company. Have patience and help resistant staff see the value of the new tools to them personally. Their conversion will not happen quickly but over time they will accept the change and may even become some of the strongest proponents of the new tools.
  • People learn best in different ways. Some learn best in a classroom situation, some learn best given time to experiment and dig around on their own. Budget time for staff to both take the training course and to have extra time on their first projects to allow for experiential learning, that way both types of learners will be accommodated. Ensure that all staff have unfettered access to either or both of expert internal assistance (from the evangelist mentioned above) and external assistance (from the tool supplier).
  • Any change requires continuous reinforcement to keep the change process moving forward. Once you have told staff of why the change needs to be made and how it will benefit them and the company, tell them again…and again…and again…until adoption is complete, which will take months.

Change is never easy, but if you do everything you can to involve your people early and often, you will have an easier time rolling out the change.

ENSURING ADOPTION

Management makes a decision to use new tools either because external forces have forced the change on them or because the tool will benefit the company. People in general are resistant to change of any type, beneficial or not, so there is always convincing involved, sometimes coddling, and sometimes forcing!

The organizations that are able to most quickly adopt new tools and benefit from them are those that are able to create and maintain an environment that fosters quick and resistance free adoption. To do this, they will make it clear that staff success in the organization depends on their ability to adopt new tools as required. Organizations can also accelerate tool changeover by removing the old tools or only accepting delivery of product created with the new tools.

The executive(s) that make the purchase decision are the ‘sponsoring executives’. It is imperative that these executives stay attuned to the situation through the purchase phase, training phase, and adoption phase in order to lend support or gentle pressure as needed to keep the process of adoption flowing.

CONCLUSION

Failed adoptions of new tools typically happen because the executives that initiated or sponsored the purchase of the new tool think their job is done once the purchase is made. Natural resistance to change in the organization thus ‘kills’ the new tool in a slow and quite manner.

The reality of the situation is that the sponsoring executive needs to remain involved from the purchase decision all the way through to the completion of adoption by all affected staff. The time required of the sponsoring executive is not much, merely ongoing attention and encouragement toward the adoption of the new tools. In our experience, this particular requirement for facilitating adoption is the single most important task that needs to be done.

We hope that the information herein will help you and your organization in adopting beneficial new tools.   A successful adoption will pay off many times over in ongoing: productivity gains, accuracy gains, and increased employee satisfaction due to reduced repetitive work.

Regards,

Dean Whitford

Chief Operating Officer

DraftLogic

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Sunk Cost–Nothing to do With Ships

April 4th, 2010

So don’t fall off your chair or otherwise hurt yourself in shock about what I am about to say…but the accountants have it right about something! What? After Enron and the financial crisis and countless ‘solid’ companies making it through audits and then flushing down the toilet? How could I say the accountants have anything right? Well, first of all, I am referring to accountants in general, not the auditors who have been taking a beating over the last few years.

The accounting concept I am referring to is that of ‘Sunk Cost’. This is a way of looking at an expenditure that was made in the past that I think could help with a lot of present day decisions for many companies. You see, being human we tend to cloud what should be rational decisions with human emotion. Not a bad thing when a decision needs some emotion in it to make it smart, but a very bad thing when including the effects of emotion in a decision will result in a wrong choice.

Get to the point you say? OK, here it is: a sunk cost is money spent in the past. It’s gone, over, done, finito. The only value you should be concerned about is whatever real value remains today in whatever you spent the money on in the past. In many cases, the current value will have little to do with the money that was spent. All too often, we attach extra value due to emotional attachment. That incorrect adjusted current value prevents us from making smart decisions today.

At DraftLogic, we run into the effect of emotionally upcharged value quite often. We’ll show our revolutionary new product, DraftLogic Electrical, to prospects and they are invariably quite impressed. They talk things over at the office about upgrading to our software & all the baggage comes out of the storage rooms: ‘We spent years or tens of thousands or both on developing our CAD standards’, ‘We just spent hundreds of thousands on coding productivity tools’, or ‘We have hundreds of thousands invested in a software platform that would need to be replaced’.

The question that should really be asked is ‘Will this new investment pay for itself and start benefiting us materially within an acceptable timeline?’ If the answer is ‘yes’, the purchase should be made and the old investment salvaged/used if partial need continues, sold if it has no current value for the company but retains some value for others, or abandoned if having no current value for anyone. That, however, is assuming decision makers and users can remove emotion and politics from the decision making equation…and when is the last time you saw that actually happen? Back to our accounting analogy, even auditors whom are supposed to be the arbiters of dispassionate numbers end up accommodating for human emotion and politics in their work, thus some of the company failures that took us all by surprise instead of coming with much forewarning from auditors.

So to you I wish the gift of vision unencumbered by emotional baggage or politics! The best I have been able to attain so far is twenty-four hour clarity on decisions where I have an emotional investment–today I render my emotionally muddled opinion & sometimes I have to come back tomorrow and say ‘OK, you were right, that is a better way & we should go with it’.

Kindest regards,
Dean Whitford, COO
DraftLogic
www.draftlogic.com

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Success Through Technology and Process

March 16th, 2010

Technology – Make it Your Advantage

Our world is changing more rapidly than many of us would like but the reality that technology is becoming more and more important in our daily lives is clearly evident in everything we do.

Computers have changed our lives forever and will continue to impact how we manage our time and activities. It has shaped the way our children see the world and what many of us older generations see as an inconvenient intrusion into our private lives the younger generations see as an undeniable advantage of access to communication and information.

Failing to recognize the importance of technology in our evolution will leave us at a disadvantage. Innovative and creative companies that embrace the new tools are the ones that will advance and grow as they are serving the new generations that have high expectations.

Work ethics are changing, long term commitment of staff is an elusive goal for many companies. Often the only consistent denominator in many organizations is the operating system that can accommodate change easily.

Removing Some of the Variables

The establishment of a dependable and easily manageable system for production that is efficient and productive can yield large rewards. A system that will accommodate staff changes easily and is consistently productive and meets the needs of consumers is critical for success. Look at McDonalds, which has endured for decades by doing things right. Make no mistake they have changed dramatically over the years to adapt not only to consumer demands but also to allow the system to work efficiently despite a high churn rate for staff.

Building the right system for your organization can mean the difference between success and failure.

Use the Right Tools Effectively

Having the right people is important but you also need to empower them with the tools, resources and knowledge to work effectively and efficiently. Today that means the most current technology in the vast majority of cases. If you don’t keep up with technology you will be left behind.

At DraftLogic, we understand the importance of making things easy to use and highly efficient. A system that automatically complies to standards, reduces the opportunity for errors, is productive quickly and fits well into the technological demands of today’s world is an important ingredient for success.


Do Your Research

When looking at new technology make sure you look carefully at what each product can do for you. There are many tools out there with many claims. It is important to understand what is reality and what is sales hype. Don’t be fooled by buzz words and claims that make unrealistic promises

At DraftLogic we have backed out claims with detailed benchmark testing.

Those that chase dreams will catch them.

Gerry Stebnicki, P. Eng, Bsc. Electrical
President
DraftLogic

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Quick Demo Video Posted to YouTube

February 23rd, 2010

We put together a seven minute video of DraftLogic Electrical in action, check it out on YouTube at:

Regards,
Dean Whitford
Chief Operating Officer
www.draftlogic.com

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BIM and Building Electrical Design Production Software Confusion

February 22nd, 2010

The BIM Buzz

BIM (building information modeling) is the new buzzword for building document production. Creating a 3D model is an exciting new way to represent the building element electronically and allows the designers to fly around and through the 3D images to see how all major components fit together. The advantages over previous 2D technology is the ability to do coordination with all building systems and a compelling way to show clients the spatial relationships that they may not have clearly understood without the benefit of this tool. There is value to the BIM approach but it does not come without a cost. Time must be devoted to creating both the base data and the rendered images, thus there is a balance to be struck between how much time is spent and how far to carry the details.

The Tools

There are many software programs available to create 3D imagery such as Revit and Sketchup.  Most can be compiled into an integrated image with 3rd party software. Programs designed for this purpose are generally easy to use but create large files and have some practical challenges that will limit the level of detail that is created. Most 3D models will include the architectural base and major elements of structural, mechanical and electrical systems that are of sufficient size or location critical to have relevance to the final model. In most cases smaller system components are not shown because as the size of a component is diminished the number of it generally increases as systems branch to the end points. Smaller components are usually not important to the 3D coordination model as they usually can be easily routed on site to fit in spaces available.

How far do you go in 3D?

The answer is easy: only go as far as you need to! Communicate with your client to find out what they really need. In electrical drafting, do you need to show anything beyond the big stuff, distribution boards, cable tray, buss duct, 4” conduits,etc?  Not really.  Even for the components you are interested in, you only need to show those in congested areas so that can cut down your work considerably. In some cases you may want to show some detail like wall plugs, switches etc in typical rooms for coordination but that should be about it.

I hate to break the news but showing ¾” conduits is of little value in the vast majority of cases because it is unlikely installing this size of component will be a problem so nobody cares about modeling to that level in a building. Most firms stop at that point and create the working drawings in their building electrical design production software environment which is usually 2D and much more efficient than working in 3D.

Benefits of 2D

As speedily as possible producing easily managed information that is still perfectly accurate and sufficiently detailed is the primary goal of electrical design firms. In creating DraftLogic Electrical we had that goal clearly in our sights, increasing designer productivity by a minimum of 200% and up to 1300%.

We have included extra information in the 2D model to enable DraftLogic Electrical to create an accurate bill of materials.  Getting to your desired documentation destination in a fraction of the time that would be demanded by working in a 3D environment is extremely beneficial when it comes to creating construction documentation.

Chart your course for efficiency

Don’t fall into the trap of trying to do everything with the wrong tools. Use good 3D software to do your modeling and use good building electrical production software to do the rest. A skilled carpenter does not use only one saw for all woodwork, he will have a variety of tools each best suited for a specific task–use software the same way. Yes, you can force results using the wrong tools but why bother to put yourself through that pain?

Gerry Stebnicki P. Eng Bsc. Electrical

President

DraftLogic

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Too Much Choice aka Featurus Overwhelmitis

January 13th, 2010

After Christmas Blues

The wrapping is in the recycle bin and the tree is back in storage…if you use an environmentally fake tree instead of something that gets burned after you use it for a few weeks.

How much use did the kids make of all the toys they received?  A couple of things still amaze me, even after my son’s fifth Christmas:  firstly, the generosity of his grandparents and aunties; and secondly, how little play time some of the toys get.  One can speculate that the toy designers are at fault & this is likely one of the factors.  In my son’s case, I think much of what happens or does not happen with the various toys is due to ‘too much choice’.

Too Many Toys

The fact of the matter is that he is spoiled rotten.  Hard to avoid when you are the only grandkid for four grandparents & thus also the only nephew for two aunties!  The gifts end up being either being used a fair amount over a long term, being used when mommy or daddy participate/mildly coerce, or simply not getting used.  When something comes in a really big box, the playtime with the box usually rivals that earned by the toy it came in.

Enough about kids and gifts and Christmas, otherwise I’ll start in on rampant consumerism being the downfall of western civilization!

How Does this Apply to Software?

Why did I bring up ‘too much choice’?  Well, the features of your application can end up in the same three ‘buckets’ as the toys: used a fair amount over a long term, only being used when trainers or support staff walk a user through it, or simply not getting used.  The worst of the second two classes of functions will not only not be used, they will get in the way and detract from your users’ quality of experience.  This is to say nothing of the extra time wasted in documenting, training, and supporting those types of features.

Featurus Overwhelmitis Causes

How does one get so many features in an application to cause Featurus Overwhelmitis?  For an experienced development team the reason is usually due to the higher the quality the development team, the more seemingly great ideas will be generated.  As project manager, it is difficult to withstand the constant onslaught of ‘great ideas’.  This is especially true if they are coming from your subject matter experts and you as project manager lack the domain specific knowledge to be able to separate the necessary from the beneficial but not necessary.  For an inexperienced development team, there is simply the feeling that users will see great value in an application if it has bazillions of functions.

The DraftLogic Electrical Experience

In building DraftLogic Electrical, we have tried to minimize Featurus Overwhelmitis.  On the intake side, feature requests and suggestions are carefully analyzed to determine how truly necessary they are.  Usually we can prevent low value add features from making it into the development schedule.  Where possible, we have completely integrated features into the workflow so that the user is not aware of having done anything extra, they just get the results they need.  Our fault levels calculations are a good example of this–they run anytime that the panel schedules, single line diagram, or bill of materials is run & ensure that those reports always have the most current data used in their creation (all load, protection, and feeder routines run for these reports–the user only has to call for the report).

On the development side, control is a bit harder.  Good developers will always have ideas about to do something better, take something farther, or offer another flavor of a feature.  The worst offenders (albeit well meaning) will go ahead and make extra features without clearance from the project manager.  Ever received three functions when you asked for one, accompanied by the comment ‘It was only a little extra time to do this that and the other thing so here are some great extras!’

The Repercussions of Giving In

I have to admit to occasionally succumbing to such deliveries and implementing the extra functions into DraftLogic Electrical’s menus and tool palette.  One such example are the three circuiting quality assurance routines.  Looking at them now, I wish I had sent the extra functions back and asked for the originally scoped single qa function that did it all.  I wish this so much that now I am going to have to allocate time for someone to consolidate them into one so I can get rid of the others and thus increase our usability.

Beating Featurus Overwhelmitis

So, project managers, stay strong and resist Featurus Overwhelmitis.  You can keep your development team and subject matter experts happy by adding ALL feature requests to a database or list.  When it is time to scope a new build, go through the list–when presented with cold hard choices of where to expend limited resources for development action items, a good development team will pick only the real gems for action.

Until next time for more software engineering ramblings,
Dean Whitford, B.Comm

Chief Operating Officer

DraftLogic

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Tool Inertia

December 23rd, 2009

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a caveperson named Pog.  Pog had a stone attached to a stick with a length of tendon.  Pog was very proud of his invention that made getting firewood easier & getting food easier.  Sure, the type of stone he used tended to flake and break often, but he was able to find replacement stones of the same kind easily.  Other cavepeople even copied his tool and made their own.

One day, Pog saw another caveperson, Grog, with a tool that had a shiny black head instead of dull grey like his.  Grog had discovered a deposit of obsidian and improved on Pog’s invention!  Pog found himself gathering wood in the same area as Grog and was amazed to see how much faster Grog was able to cut pieces of wood using his sharper and more durable tool.  Grog was happy to show any other cavepeople where the obsidian was, and many went with him to get their own pieces of obsidian.

Pog, however, had been using his dull grey stone tool for a long time and was comfortable with it.  He knew it took much longer to do everything, but the fear of trying to learn and use an new tool kept him from changing to the better obsidian blade.  Besides, Pog had invented the dull grey stone cutting tool, how could he abandon it!  In time, the obsidian users outperformed the dull grey stone users by such a margin that all the dull grey stone users died out and ended up merely as fossils buried in the soil.

How sad…if only Pog had not been afraid to adopt the newer, better tool!

THE DEVIL THAT WE KNOW

OK, you got me.  That was a rather long winded way of pointing out that we humans often stick with what we know and are comfortable with rather than trying new things–even if there is a strong probability that the new thing will make our work easier and/or better in some way.

We saw this happen twentyish years ago with the migration from manual drafting to CAD (computer aided design).  Thinking back in your career, you can probably remember situations where you saw people and/or organizations resist change that would have benefited them.

FLAVOR OF THE MONTH?

So should we go ahead and adopt every new tool that looks like it might benefit us in some way?  Of course not–you don’t want to be a member of the flavor of the month club, endlessly hopping from one half baked innovation to the next.

BEAT TOOL INERTIA

You still need to perform due diligence to ensure that a tool is truly going to benefit you.  Once you have performed due diligence, however, don’t let tool inertia bind you forever to the devil that you know!

Regards,
Dean Whitford, B.Comm.
Chief Operating Officer
DraftLogic
www.draftlogic.com

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See You On The Internets!

December 2nd, 2009

Today’s headline is courtesy of a real estate agent’s advertisement on my favorite radio station, SONiC 102.9 FM Edmonton.  The agent diligently repeats their web site address a couple of times and invites us all to visit and see their listed properties.  Being ‘detail oriented’, it makes me a little crazy every time I hear the ad and have to listen to the cheery closing line ‘See you on the Internets!’.  There is, of course, only one Internet…not a whole bunch.  And, yes, I am well aware there is a less polite way of describing those who are detail oriented…but I am trying to keep this blog family friendly so won’t be using ‘that’ word.

A LESSON FOR US FROM A REAL ESTATE AGENT

So am I writing today to pick on poor real estate agents and radio ad copy writers that accidentally pluralize ‘Internet’?  Nope, I am writing today because each time I hear the  advertisement it reminds me that not everybody on the planet is ‘in’ the information technology business.  This is important to remember for everyone involved in making or changing applications in any way:  project managers, software architects, developers, quality assurance staff, documentation writers, and technical support staff.

You can design and build the most fantastic application in terms of functionality and rock solid quality.  Without being usable by the intended audience, however, such an application is just as doomed to fail as one that is sparse in features and bug-ridden.

ENSURING USABILITY

How can you ensure usability?  First, it is important to understand that usability does have some core characteristics that apply across the vast majority of user audiences.  These are such things as following Windows conventions for the placement of menus, buttons, button names, button actions, etc.  In this regard, it is very important to NOT reinvent the wheel, i.e. stick with what is out there in common use.  Folks will thus have a head start on understanding how to run your application.

Second, usability beyond those core elements does change from user type to user type.  An application to help developers find memory leaks should thus have a user interface that differs materially from a bank teller application.

WHAT IS THE USER LOOKING FOR

So the core conventions are easy to determine and follow.  It is the special nuances that your particular set of users are expecting that are the difficult part to discover and implement.  You will need to determine who your users are going to be, what area of expertise they have, the terminology that is common among them all, and the lowest common denominator of information technology competence.

Each industry has its own ‘language’–terms not used anywhere else, or meanings for words that differ from how we use the same words outside the industry.  If your application is to appeal to these users and also to ease their learning of your application, you must be aware of these terminology needs and make use of them–or at least avoid any ‘faux pas’ by using words in wrong ways.

LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

When you are looking to determine the lowest common denominator of information technology competence, you are not looking for the single most technologically challenged user in the group and then building the user interface to accommodate for them.  Your application would drive everyone else crazy in trying to be too simple to run!  Remove the outliers from consideration and look to where you find a strong cluster of users at the lowest level of information technology competence.  That’s your target of where to make your application usable with user interface design.

MULTIPLE WAYS TO RUN

Finally, if your user clusters are varied in industry and IT competence, you can always bundle different user interface packages to suit each cluster.  Investing the time to make your application as usable as possible to each different audience you wish to sell to will pay off well in increased sales, happier users, and reduced technical support needs.

Hey, do you think ‘See you on the Internets!’ has any change of dislodging ‘All your base are belong to us.’ from fame and fortune?

See you on the Internets,
Dean Whitford, B.Comm.
Chief Operating Officer
DraftLogic
www.draftlogic.com

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