Chris Anderson is currently writing his new book, called Free, and in it he describes that in a competitive market, price tends towards marginal cost and therefore the price of most software (I think an exception will definitely be in the enterprise space), will tend towards being free. Basically, Economics 101, with a twist for our industry.
Once of the main reasons to date that free software has not become mainstream amongst average computer users is that the free stuff is generally written by open source techies, and no one really focuses on design and usability. So generally, free = open source = unusable by the common man.
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote a great post today in his blog about free software usability – and this one of the best pieces on the topic that I’ve seen written to date. He describes 15 points as to why free software has poor usability, and how to fix it.
Now that you’ve done that (or not, you don’t have to, but I hope I make sense!), I’d like to briefly speak to the headings of the 15 points he mentioned, and discuss how we (SynthaSite) as a company are trying to push the envelope with high quality free software, and pioneer a new way to build businesses and income around free software with alternative revenue streams, rather than charging the end user. We hope to inspire other software companies to be creative in the way, that they also try to build out their business models.
Certainly the thoughts of Chris Anderson follows what leaders on the web have been doing for many years, but usability is going to take the front seat, if you want to be successful in this space.
I’m going to make some points against each of Matthew’s – probably best read after reading his post. Remember though, SynthaSite, although free, is a commercial piece of software, so we do have a different approach to it than traditional free and open source products. Now, I’m not going to do what most bloggers do, and reiterate his fantastic piece of work by cut and pasting – so I highly advise you to read it first before continuing – it’s the best 5 minutes of your life that you will spend on this topic.
Matt’s problems with developing free software and how SynthaSite deals with it:
Weak incentives for usability – The more usable a product, the quicker it goes viral. In the current paradigm of large user bases, usability is key if you want to keep users coming back and spreading the word about your web application.
Few good designers – So true. Typically, open source & free software doesn’t get much attention on the design side, after all, it’s free – right? Wrong. Interface design is one of the most important areas of the software development phase and if done incorrectly, will certainly bamboozle most users (who probably won’t try your product again)
Design suggestions often aren’t invited or welcomed – Matt’s point says it all.
Usability is hard to measure – Not at all, we utilize a number of methods, including metric which are unique to each business. Figure out what goals you want your users to achieve, and test how changes to your interface affect those outcomes. If you’re trying to encourage users to build a blog, then see what percentage of users do that, before and after you make changes. It’s not rocket science.
Coding before design – Most startups can’t afford a user interface specialist – understandably, and we didn’t have one when started, but since getting funding, changed that quickly by hiring UI people – design first, then code.
Too many cooks – Like anything in life, too many opinions won’t help. Someone needs to take charge. We have a dedicated UX team that deals with usability issues, and within that team, the roles are clearly defined.
Chasing tail-lights – what works for Apple won’t necessarily work for you. Understanding YOUR users, and design accordingly.
Scratching their own itch –
remember this if nothing else
– 9/10 times, you are probably NOT the target customer and your needs are definitely not representative of the masses, especially if you’re an engineer building a consumer app
Leaving little things broken – this is a difficult one that all software companies will face. How do you deal with the small stuff and the big stuff at the same time. We try our best and over time, we get better at it. Things are never going to slow down, deal with the small stuff on an ongoing basis.
Placating people with options – Here is a nugget: “Less is more, if more is hidden”. Hide complex functionality – power users will find it, beginners won’t need to!
Fifteen pixels of fame – This is where good UI people come in. They want what’s best for the user, not the engineer and his or her ego. Incidentally, I think this point is more prominent in open source community projects where people feel the need to stand out in forums of thousands of people, rather than companies I have worked in of less than 20 engineers, so I don’t think I have personally experienced this problem.
Design is high-bandwidth, the Net is low-bandwidth – Some of the most amazing bits of innovation has been in a room with a white board and some markers. As great as the Internet is, it can’t take away that fresh smell of a marker, and the innovation it brings 
Release early, release often, get stuck – SynthaSite has put out over a half dozen releases this year already – with more to come. We are an agile organization and our ability to get high quality work out regularly proves that, in my opinion. I seriously recommend that everyone read “Getting Real” and modify as required for your environment. It’s not absolute, but a good guide nevertheless. We work on 3 week iterations, 2 weeks of coding and 1 week of QA & debugging. My CTO, Brent Viljoen, is a whiz at gearing the company into an agile organization and aligning different departments with engineering to deliver the goods as promised. Many CTO’s still live in the past with their long term outlooks and development processes – in the current paradigm, it’s technically retarded. The key really is to incrementally improve your processes – you won’t get it 100% done from day one, but over time, it will definitely become a way of life, and create order from chaos.
Mediocrity through modularity – this point really speaks to building a product from user requirements back into engineering, and not the other way round. We are using GetSatisfaction to constantly get feedback from our users – their wish is our command…
Gated development communities – API’s are changing this field rapidly. Web apps are now integrating 3rd party apps seamless. We recently deployed a Widgetbox integration into SynthaSite, which now gives our users instant access to over 60,000 widgets – from a simple drag and drop interface. The power of API’s and partnerships are only beginning.
If you read this far, thanks – it’s one of my longer posts, and certainly more engineering and usability focused, but highly applicable to any industry that develops any type of product for consumers.
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Comments On This Post
August 5, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Hi Vinny,
Once again, right on the mark!
I couldn’t agree more (even if I’d like to find something to disagree) with your post. Software should be free (services can be free too) and usability is one of the key thing, if not the key issue for rapid users adaption and growth. A few comments on some points:
Design suggestions, good designers and coding before designing:
True working in a silo with a designer doesn’t get you too far but even if you can’t afford or can’t find a good designer the do it yourself approach can take you far. Putting yourself in users’ mindset and focusing on the top 1 or 2 goals a user will do on a specific page or task is central. Start with users’ intent and if needed use Paint to cut and paste your page to do some quick mock ups. This will help you visualize what users will see and how they’ll be able to interact with your features. This enable something wire framing can’t; the big picture. One you have a good idea of what the interface will look like then coding can start.
Usability is hard to measure:
Agree with you. It’s not difficult and even quite easy for web apps. This will let us see how user interact with your site/features, where they can’t find or complete their tasks, etc. Once you have enough date go back to your UX and improve it. This should be a continuous improvement, and it’s even more necessary as the number of features increase.
Leaving little things broken:
You need to focus on the important stuff vs trivial. Leave trivial aside but if you keep doing the same with little (but) important things you end up pretty quickly with some major problems. Fix little but important things along the way, yes, even if it takes a little longer.
Release early, release often, get stuck:
So true. You can’t do daily releases or even releases every few couple of days (unless you’re a “one person team”). And the more people you have working on the code the more complex it gets. Being agile and fast takes a little planning and (yes) still need release cycles. Being organized is key (even if it’s just a little), and if you don’t like it ,well, you’re probably in the wrong job or business. Agree with you cycles of 2-3 weeks usually work very well.
Best,
Martin
August 5, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Vinny,
Great post. These tenets are important for practically any product that is being built, even a toy. Through my own blood, sweat and tears (oh, so many tears), I have personally experienced most of what you talk about and have found that a market-driven, user-first approach is the best way to success.
I would add one tenet that connects many of these: what is the user problem you’re trying to solve? This is sometimes difficult to uncover because many people jump to a solution idea before articulating the actual business problem they want solved. For example, a customer may say “I want a report that tells me how many sales I’ve made today.” That is a solution. What you really need to understand is why the customer needs that daily update, and what activities will that customer do with that information. Does the customer need to update her boss? Does the customer make investment or hiring decisions? Does the customer change his ad buy? If you understand those things, you can deliver an appropriate and targeted solution. Perhaps a text message sent to the user’s phone is a better solution than a report. Perhaps an api that allows that customer to integrate that sales information into their own business application is better.
And if you’re developing UX, understanding the user’s most critical problems they want solved, and what is the most important information they need, will help you prioritize the UX features properly. If daily sales through your product is the most important information to your users, it should be the most prominent information.
Unfortunately, you as a developer or a company insider or an individual, can’t really know what is important to the largest group of users that will get the most benefit from your product.
Pragmatic Marketing (http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com) is a company I’ve worked with that coaches companies on becoming market driven. I do not work for them, I just know that I’ve had tremendous success by having my product managers trained by them, and by incorporating their philosophy. They have a couple of pithy sayings that keep me on track:
1) The answers to your questions are not in the building.
2) Your opinion, while interesting, is irrelevant.
The great thing about having an outside-in approach, where the market needs determine your product features and design, is that is pretty inexpensive to talk to potential customers. The more people you talk to, the better chance your product will have at success. And that will save you a mint. But remember, talk to them to understand their problems, not the solution ideas they have for you (that comes later, after release).
Cheers Vinny,
Rebecca Madigan
product development veteran
August 5, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Rebecca & Martin – thanks for both your insightful comments. This is definitely an interesting thread, as software development changes, so do the economics of Software as a Service. I’m very interested to see how lean and nimble some companies become, whilst servicing millions of customers – very different to the pre-2000 paradigm
August 6, 2008 at 9:02 am
Whats up Vin.
Awesome post, it’s been months waiting for you to touch base on the “free” concept the internet is evolving into and glad to see you’re ahead of the pack. Surely this makes for great discussion.
I see too many different and sometimes rather unorthodox approaches to free software and open source, but you have done a great job with proving (through synthasite) that it is possible to run a big company off a free based software front-end.
Incorporating free software with a business model back-end is not easy, though it is also not as tough as some people may think. Requires much creative thinking and one needs to understand the elements of approach and how your “free” software will keep the end-user tuned in, in order to pull it off.
As you mentioned, it will never be 100%, but Trail and error is a must and living by Guy Kawasaki’s generic fundamentals you will be well on your way in incorporating perfection into your software’s future goals and broaden an already widespread way of approach to free software.
Starts off with creative thinking and realizing the short term as well as long term goals of an (the) end-user market, then design, more creative thinking, coding… etc.
I’ve seen some really cool startups that’s driven by a great design and backbone system, though creative thinking by implementation lacked and in turn did not keep their user tuned in.
You have to have a balance through every department and phase of development in order to make things mold, whilst maintaining your usability and user friendly goals on top of your list!
Great post Vin, food for though A-grade!
Regards,
JP
August 6, 2008 at 9:34 am
check out Kevin Kelly on the next 5000 days of the web, very cool.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_...
August 7, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Vinny obviously niether you or Mathew actually work in any Open Source projects. Why do you think we treat Useability lightly?
I am the project leader of TurboCASH Accounting and my main focus and the Dev area that I participate in the most is Usabilty. Any Open Source program that is not usable, simply dies off and does not get heard of. With a free price there simply is no space for induction.
August 7, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Hey Philip
I never said I was an open source expert, what I’m saying is that I believe the future of (consumer software, mainly), is free and I’m also saying that the perception is that free software IS ALWAYS open source, and therefore unusable.
SynthaSite is built using open source technologies and is made freely available, but we have a heavy focus on usability, much more than other free products out there. Also, I read your blog post at (http://www.turbocash.net/index.php?option=com_c...) and you incorrectly assume that we have to market to our users to make money. That is not our business model, which is to assist our users in becoming active online and consuming 3rd party online services.
Knowing the infrastructure that we’re putting in place to conduct user testing, support & design in a data driven organization, I find it very hard, if not near impossible to believe that open source, non-commercial mass consumer applications are getting as much attention in the usability field as we are giving it in the free, commercial field.
Vinny
Vinny
August 8, 2008 at 9:07 am
I have no problem with commercial players. This is the real world that we live in. On the other side I am always fighting with Open Source purists, who struggle to accept our acceptance of Windows. My argument with them is that there is no pure open source – in the end this all runs on Intel PCode and this is very proprietary.
Thinking that we do not care about usability borders on arrogance. Like Synthasite is the only people in the world that discovered that users actually have to use the code. I have been in this business (designing software) for nearly 30 years – I still underestimate just how low the users’ tolerance is for ambiguity. But lets leave it at that – the resolution of this debate is totally subjective and has been going on since I first argued it with Dan Bricklin at Visicalc 20 years ago – He won and I learned from him..
Let me help you – Here is my narrative :
I do like to support South African companies, even if they are based in California. I spent much time there myself in the TurboCAD days. I did try Synthasite, and recommended my daughter (17) and son (10) to set up their sites. Independently we all found it too complicated. (usability)
She ended up at bappy he ended up at wetpaint and I ended up at Ning. All different experiences.
That said – I believe that EVERY business needs a web site and we have 70 000 TurboCASH users, many of whom do not have a web site. If there is any way that you think Synthasite can be of assistance to them get your people to contact my people and let us get something going. Along the way I will show you how we do care about usability in Open Source and that usability does matter.
So why exactly would a TurboCASH user want to use Synthasite?
August 11, 2008 at 11:40 am
I am surprised to read this article because my visions regarding free stuff were different. In general only one free software which I love the most is, UBUNTU, Yes it is Linux distro and I think that lot of people have contributed it. My thoughts for other free software are not good and I think that they are just wastage of time and resources without any type of support.
August 13, 2008 at 2:56 pm
How long do you think it will take for Microsoft’s stranglehold on the world’s computers to really take a serious blow? I here Mac OS is more popular in japan than Windows Vista, so maybe it could be in the foreseeable future.
August 15, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Do you guys hear about OpenSolaris? I think it is going to be the best OS on this planet. I have downloaded the image and about to install the OS. I am excited about it.
August 26, 2008 at 3:47 pm
For me, as owner of a small software development company, frequent – or at least tightly planned – releases are key to keeping a sense of momentum and avoiding distractions on trivial points.
The software we product is low-cost but not always free. One of our key selling points is ease of use. When people purchase our software they get direct communication with the development company and reassurance of continued development of the product.
September 17, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Funny enough – Mark Shuttleworth seems to agree with me:
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-221128.html
October 15, 2008 at 2:45 pm
do like to support South African companies, even if they are based in California. I spent much time there myself in the TurboCAD days. I did try Synthasite, and recommended my daughter (17) and son (10) to set up their sites. Independently we all found it too complicated. (usability)
October 23, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Thanks vinny for his comment
November 11, 2008 at 12:05 am
This is a great post….free software can also be good for marketing..
February 22, 2009 at 4:27 am
I'm a great supporter of free software. I'm only praying for Reactos to become available to permanently shift from Windows to it.
http://codefusionlab.co.cc
June 7, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!
July 23, 2009 at 9:06 am
I am surprised to read this article because my visions regarding free stuff were different. This is a great post….free software can also be good for marketing..
July 23, 2009 at 9:18 am
I spent much time there myself in the TurboCAD days. I did try Synthasite, and recommended my daughter and son to set up their sites. Independently we all found it too complicated. (usability)
July 27, 2009 at 10:40 am
Great post. These tenets are important for practically any product that is being built, even a toy.
August 16, 2009 at 10:19 pm
thank you for sharing
September 1, 2009 at 12:57 am
Great post. These tenets are important for practically any product that is being built, even a toy. Through my own blood, sweat and tears (oh, so many tears), I have personally experienced most of what you talk about and have found that a market-driven, user-first approach is the best way to success.
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