Software that's enjoyable ... software that's a drudgery

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 3, 2015 at 07:44 AM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Anyway, my point is that when I got my first IBM PC with Wordstar as my
>word processor, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

Steve,

As usual, you’ve hit the nail on the head… But it isn’t just for word processors. Back in the 80s, as a volunteer for Amnesty International, I used to write the addresses for our network (of a few hundred) by hand or, at best, photocopying labels. A few years later in Greenpeace, with the help of Paradox database (for DOS), we streamlined the management of tens of thousands of supporters. There are many other examples of such information management ‘leveraging’.

>In my view, all
>the refinements to computers and software in total since then amount to
>a smaller upgrade in ability than that one giant leap from typewriter to
>computer, in terms of writing.

I believe there has been another quantum leap and this has had to do with collaboration; from Track Changes in Word* to joint list management in Google Apps, we can (almost seamelessly) produce totals greater than the sum of their parts. There is a price of course, and that is that our joint tools can usually be only a bit higher than the common denominator…

And ,of course, there is the ‘liberation’ from the cubicle, by being able to work from multiple locations—which itself comes at a price.

I see another leap currently underway: visualising (joint) workflow. I introduced kanbantool.com to my team of editors and they took on it within less than an hour. It has been essential in streamlining our work. In theory we could do the same with an issue tracker, but I find their non-visual approach repellent and non-conducive to action.

As one who’s tried a multitude of tools, I have the curse of dissatisfaction; none is perfect of course, and it’s easy to notice missing features because I’ve seen them elsewhere… But gradually, the tools that really help get work done will be bubblesorted to the surface. I made a reasonable budget for a new project in minimal time using MindView; if I had worked with Excel it would have been particularly error prone—but of course I had to export to Excel at the end.

The tools I choose will usually represent a good compromise between functionality and pleasure. As a business (half)owner and largely responsible for ICT, I have the luxury of not having my tools imposed in me—and the responsibility to introduce tools that others will be able to integrate in their workflow without too much fuss.

*By the way, 2013 is probably the first Word version I feel comfortable with; I find the interface much cleaner and more discrete, the changing Ribbon no longer disturbs my textual focus (I keep it minimised nevertheless) and Track Changes