What is good software, anyway?

By Larry Laux
President and Founder

That might seem like a silly question coming from the CEO of a software company, but I’ve been asking that question of myself lately. I’ll share some of my answers, and some related questions and answers, in this and in some upcoming blog entries.

To be able to answer the question, I need to re-state and frame my question more tightly: ‘What is good business application software?’ To begin with, what pieces make up business application software. Then, what makes those pieces ‘good’?
Here is a short list of general attributes of business application software:

It has to perform the business function it was designed to perform – print payables checks, track field inventory, whatever.

I am not convinced that there can be ‘too much’ business capability. But I do agree that software can be hard to understand and follow what it’s doing (which can safely be called ‘bad’). Also, if users don’t want to use a feature, they should be able to easily ‘turn it off’ or otherwise avoid it without being forced to plow through unwanted stuff.

It needs to play well with other systems. For example, a scheduling package must easily take in data from the system storing all of the service calls, perform the magic of optimization, and send the answer(s) back in an acceptable format. This ‘data mapping’ and integration of information between systems can easily ‘blow up’ a project. More about this in a future blog entry.

The software must have good hygiene factors. Among these are:

• Runs fast enough, short response times.
  
• Is secure in its handling of data, especially sensitive data.
  
• Can reasonably grow with your organization without degrading performance.
  
• Is built in an acceptable or better technology.

The user interface is another piece of the overall system. I am still not convinced that any software is or can be intuitive. Sorry, Mac users, I don’t buy it. But I absolutely think it can be conventional, and MUST be consistent. Further, if it can be easily adjusted to the specific business process of the users, that is a significant advantage.

It’s interesting that some of these are subjective – what is ‘fast enough’ for some situations may be totally unacceptable in others. I expect, though, that a small group of smart people in your company could get together and develop a list of wants and needs from this very high level list of attributes.

But what makes application software good?

Partly, good-ness is contained in how the above items are achieved. A hands-on trial can help determine if you think the user interface is ‘good’.

I would say that if a software package were to be judged ‘good’ in three, or all four of these categories, it would be ‘good software’. But I think there are more attributes that a software application can have. With them, a ‘good’ software package can be ‘very good’ or ‘great'. I will try to get to those in a blog entry next week.

Let me leave you with one closing thought.

Software vendors especially, but sometime also buyers, get wandering among the trees of features, functions and sizzle and lose sight of the forest.

I think the number one, most important, gotta-have from a software application is – USING THE SOFTWARE MAKES MORE MONEY FOR YOUR COMPANY. Everything else is fluff.