Opinion: Motivating and training professionals to take full advantage of upgrades is hard, so lots of cool new features are going unused.Technology providers very often live in a dream world where it is enough to bring a new feature or program to the market to push the envelope of how professionals go about their work.
In all fairness, there is some historical foundation for this. Desktop publishing was a home run. Enthusiastic users adopted Photoshop before there was actually a practical use for it in the publishing workflow.
Even today, certain niche functionality can change user behavior if there is a strongly perceived need for it: The fast adoption of Camera Raw tools is a good example for this.
Click here to read Edmund Ronald's column, "Raw Format Is a Lifesaver."
But these examples should not mask the horrid truth for vendors: Most users don't care about technology or cutting edge features. They just want to get their job done, and usually, the most efficient way of doing this is by using exactly the same methods you employed yesterday and the day before.
It is actually quite ironic that the industry that has epitomized innovation as a driving force in society is probably the most change-averse in history.
Except for the nerds and geeks among us, we do not want to change anything in our digital work environment: What more horrific thought is there than to change e-mail clients?
User inertia is a very strong force, and it helps cement monopolies. Where would Microsoft be today if computer users showed the same patterns for change as buyers of consumer electronics, cell phones or cars?
Is there another revolution coming in desktop publishing? Click here to read Andreas Pfeiffer's thoughts.
The real problem with user inertia, however, is that it presents the most monumental barrier to change in maturing industries. Most users stick with older versions of software, and even when they upgrade, they usually keep well-established work methods rather than experimenting with new possibilities.
And let's be fair: Who has the time to learn about new features, especially since providing manuals has become a disappearing art in the software business?
A serious issue is evolving for technology providers. The typical publishing workflow has been established for a decade, and while there are plenty of opportunities for change, most work groups stick with what they know.
Unless we desperately need a particular functionality, chances are we will not be using it. In market research studies my company has conducted, learning about new features is often cited as the biggest issue users have with new technology.
Next Page: The technology isn't the issue.
And even when software and hardware companies make a concerted effort to educate the market, these endeavors usually reach the same 10 percent or 15 percent of the users who are interested in technology.
This resistance slows technology adoption to a snail's pace. JDF was hailed as an essential development for standardizing job tickets in publishing, yet few publishers have adopted it.
XML and XMP face similar slow adoption curves. Color management has been around for over a decade, and it is still far from being pervasive.
Even on the user level, things get adopted very slowly.
How many QuarkXPress 6.x users actively employ its Project features? How many Creative Suite users also use Version Cue? How many will actively use the more advanced features in Adobe Bridge, the file management component which is shipped as part of Adobe Creative Suite 2?
Even in larger companies that have specialists to think out, test and implement technology changes, the big issue is not with technology: It is with the user.
If a designer is used to copying files to his or her desktop for work, it can take very long to convince the user to work directly off the server—and to convince users to use workflow management technologies such as Version Cue may be next to impossible.
But technology is only as good as the parts you use. And technology providers need to get better at creating enthusiasm about the tools they are bringing to the market.
Apple is popular in the market because even a non-technical user can immediately grasp the benefits of some new features.
Even somebody who has never thought about MP3 players can see that the iPod is simple to use.
What we need for the publishing industry--and for the software business in general, is more of the iPod effect: not more features, but a spectacularly simple way of using them.
Ease of use is the ultimate killer feature.
Andreas Pfeiffer is founder of The Pfeiffer Report on Emerging Trends and Technologies.
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