Chapter Eight: Refresh The System
It’s possible to completely transform some business systems for their constituencies of end users simply by retooling the user interface. Homegrown systems can become vastly more effective by redesigning the software’s displays, and large-scale enterprise systems may benefit from an analysis and reconfiguration of on-screen language. If the technology platform for an existing system is solid, what’s needed for a better business system may be only skin deep.
The bigger your system, the more flexibility you may have, but even a single application that is sold by subscription may offer opportunities for configuration that can dramatically help performance—improvements that can be made without buying an upgrade or investing in customization.
Think about delaying any new purchase or system development until you can undertake a design review to discover exactly why an existing system is underperforming. There’s a good chance that you can squeeze significantly more benefit from an existing system if the design of the user interface is evaluated and improved. If the challenge is user adoption and user effectiveness, the solution may cost only a few thousand dollars and a few weeks of effort. It’s likely that the benefits will greatly exceed the cost of a new system. For suggestionson how to identify design talent in-house and lead a design review, see Appendix A, “Maximizing Your Design Resources.”
If your system is running but you’re not satisfied with the results, this chapter provides some low-tech ways to locate the source of the problemsand remove impediments that are slowing everyone down.
