When people are specifying software one often hears the phrase ‘It must be easy to use’.

I rather think this is jumping the gun… the first and most important requirement should be more along the lines of ‘It must make the users life easier’ or ‘It must add new value to a users world’.

And if we think hard enough about it then ‘add value’ is really just an extension of ‘makes easier’… how so?

The ‘added value’ always has a goal, whether it be peer recognition, money, or sex appeal the user is still trying to achieve something by adding value to their lives and if the software enables that then it is in fact making their lives easier.

Without that (often ignored) step the product is doomed… no matter how easy the software is to use if it doesn’t make the users life easier then why are they going to use it in the first place?

This also helps explain why some dire products are actually successes. They may be an utter pain the behind to use and they may crash 50 times a day but if I take all that into account they still make my work possible or easier then I will still use them.

‘Easy to use’ is by far the secondary consideration.

Of course… once you have a product that makes the users life easier or better then ‘easy to use’ becomes much more important… after all who would voluntarily opt for something harder to use?

Oh, right, Power Users would. These folks will trade ‘easy to use’ for ‘makes my life even easier’ in a heartbeat.

Power Users seem to prefer consistency and predictability over mere ease of use. They will gladly invest hours of learning provided a) their lives get easier to use, and b) the effort is rewarded by unlocking even more potential.

Ordinary Users however will not invest hours of learning… in fact for a large majority if it isn’t obvious in a few seconds how to achieve something it is already too complex.

I’ve watched people type in a word and then click the ‘bold’ button… when nothing happens their first thought isn’t “Oh, I forgot to select the text” it’s more like “Hmmm… the bold feature doesn’t work”.

Of course what we have is a gradient of users from the most disinterested all the way up to the ‘expert power user’.

However they all have one thing in common… they are trying to make their lives easier by getting something done.

I believe this then is the baseline from which all software development must begin…

Who are the users and how does this software make their life easier?