While perusing a copy of the latest Macworld magazine I realized that the advertisements from software companies highlighted design and ease of use. As a matter of fact, the company that makes Mailplane; a Gmail client for the Mac, is named Uncomplex. So what happened to PC World magazine software advertisers? What did they highlight? It’s not design and user experience I tell you!

So why such a disparity between the two platforms? Is it a cultural issue? Do all Mac users expect easy to use, good looking software interfaces? Don’t PC users deserve the same benefits or are they expected to rip the cover off of their computers and fix bad cards and mess with .dll files?

I think back to the story of Microsoft and Apple and note that Microsoft wanted to build software and saw that they could- and that was frankly good enough. Whereas Apple wanted to create a user friendly piece of hardware with complimentary software. They thought of the user- not the bits and bytes.

It is my hope though that all software and hardware interfaces adopt the culture of beautiful simplicity. Think about how much time will be saved because learning curves are flat. It should be easy to make the switch right? Isn’t simple easier to create than difficult? Not at all! And therein lies the problem.

User Experience Now, Not Later

User Experience Design has been getting increasingly more press as companies seek to improve productivity and decrease costs while at the same time keep their employees happy. Bad software costs more than just its initial development; long term exposure to bad software leads to inaccurate data entry, long lead times to get users up to speed, and constant support. Frankly, it’s cheaper to build bad software because the money is in the support and training. There is little investment if any in usability testing, paper prototyping, wireframing, etc. These activities are largely non-existent.

User Experience professionals are needed more now than ever. But they need user support to truly change the way software is made. All of us use this software. All of us run into bad interfaces and what do we do about it? We just keeping on using on it. That time should end and a new perspective should be ushered in. Make way for the User Experience Revolution!

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The Revolution will be tweeted, screencast and displayed on YouTube, and promoted at conferences and on T-Shirts. We all deserve good design and ease of use. The next time you encounter bad software design tweet it. Tell the developer about your experience. Offer to help test the next release. Be a solution- not a passive participant. And maybe in the next five years PC World advertisers will look more like Macworld advertisers. Viva La Revolución!

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