Archive for May 2014

It’s an Issue! Don’t Bug Me!

May 29th, 2014

I recently had cause to call my bank. Now, I wasn’t expecting to speak to a real person right away; I don’t pay enough fees for that. But I was at least hoping that relatively quickly I could press 1, then press 3 and then 2 to get to the right person to ask my question. Like most of us, I have battled automated help systems on many occasions and I know the routine. I had checked the support website and looked for pre-existing answers to my question, but with no luck and so now I had turned to the phone. As an aside, can it really be true that every organization out there needs me to listen to their entire message because they have all changed their menu options? Are they ever going to get them right? Read More

When is Configurability a Bad Idea?

May 22nd, 2014

What is worse than a product that is not configurable? Answer: a product that is completely configurable. This might seem counter intuitive: don’t we all want to have products that we can control and dictate their behavior? Well, yes, and no. As products become more configurable they often become harder to use, or at least hard to set up. Read More

Customer Support is an Asset Not a Liability

May 6th, 2014

In the rush to streamline and cut costs, there is a tendency towards reduced customer contact with real people. This poses real challenges in industries such as computer software that depend on frequent customer feedback to make sure they are building systems that actually meet their end users' needs. Read More

What is a Software Defect?

May 2nd, 2014

I doubt most people would struggle to answer the question, “What is a defect?” After all, we know what a defect looks like when we come across it, don’t we? “The system has encountered an unexpected error and must shut down,” is a message that leaves us in no doubt that there must be a defect in there somewhere. But knowing a defect when we see one is very different from being able to define what ‘defect’ actually means. Read More