For my tool to SAP PI/PO testing system, I was asked how much training you need. My thought was one hour, a client said 4 hours. That is a big difference than learning SAP PI/PO that will take days/months.
With all tools, there is the trade-off to make something simple that can do one thing VS something that can do everything. The simple is a Stopwatch app. A complex is a Java framework like Spring that allows you to do everything. And then you have everything in between.
But it got me thinking about how we learn software. You can view the video here
Please share below if you have found any good tools that we can learn from.
So a good example of a software that is good to use from the gaming world is the simulation games. Here you get information that now clicks this icon, then do this and now you can build a farm. It is a bit frustrating because you cannot explore the application. If they do not have this guide it will be difficult to have users figuring out how to use the system.
I have not seen that strong guides for anything in the Enterprise world. Our installation is taking longer than installing an App from your favorite app store. And probably there are too many steps involved to just discard a project the moment you first run into a problem.
In the SAP world it is also difficult you have SAP ERP and creating a Purchase Order takes some time to learn. I know there are Screen Personas ( or what current name may be) and Fiori that may simplify some of the normal POs created. But it still a different approach and will allow a limited functionality. If users should do something more or create a more complicated PO it cannot be done without a lot of custom development.
Our current approaches to simplify the user experience is:
- Add a free video course that covers the different scenarios that you would have. So a way to get the user started.
- We are also working on embedding the documentation tighter into the application.
- We have tried to make it as simple as possible to set up the test case with the tool.
I’m not sure if we could make some guides that helped people selecting a good interface to start testing with. But there could be some pointers what people should be looking at and for.
Please share if any good ideas to look for ways to get people using complex enterprise software.