[Web4lib] RE: vendors and usability

[C.S. Durfee]

With all due respect, I have found in my experience that it is rather
a bad idea to "log every single problem or usability issue, no matter
how small".  That can lead to a situation where all perspective is
lost, and all problems are treated with the same level of severity -
none.  You really don't want your vendor treating trivial issues with
the same degree of urgency as more serious ones.  And you don't want
your vendor to spend all of their time firefighting, fixing things
that are problems for just a handful of customers, instead of building
next generation systems.

Besides, you always always always catch more flies with honey than
with vinegar.  You need to pick your battles carefully and win every
one.  How? For starters, by being polite but firm, and making it
easier for the vendor to fix the bug (by always filing exact steps to
reproduce the problem) and for them to understand why it is such a big
issue for your library.   Being the customer from hades is not the
best way to achieve that, in my experience.

Library systems software is extremely complex.  There are a lot of
reasons for that (some obvious, some not so obvious) which I won't go
into here, but it is.  I do not know for sure, but I am willing to bet
that the number of function points (a standard metric of software
complexity) for a complete ILS is much higher than for, say, MS Word. 
I would love to see a vendor actually provide such an analysis to
their customers, though.

I do agree with the suggestion to do what you can to get the best
software for your money.  Capitalism is a great way of encouraging the
development of better products.  If one vendor is better than the
others, by all means, give them your business!  And even if you are
using the best vendor in the world, negotiate for the best price you
can get.



On 7/16/05, Jesse Ephraim <JEphraim at ci.southlake.tx.us> wrote:
> "For years, my library has been struggling with some basic usability
> flaws in our online catalog interface for the web, things that can't
> apparently be done with the software as it stands and are apparently low
> 
> priority for the vendor.
> What are librarians doing to pressure catalog softwarevendors to address
> 
> usability issues?"
> 
> There are several things you can do:
> 
> 1) Call the vendor every single time there is a problem or a usability
> issue, no matter how small.  Use the support and maintenance agreement
> to its fullest.  If everyone does this, it will become more
> cost-effective for them to simply fix the problems (or make the software
> more usable).
> 
> 2) Haggle very hard over the cost of everything.  Library automation
> software companies don't get challenged enough on their prices, and many
> don't feel that they have to be competitive since it is an involved
> process to change software (and there are a limited number of
> competitors).  However, many will come down pretty significantly
> (particularly on support/maintenance costs) if you dig your heels in,
> particularly if you let them know that you have been talking to other
> vendors who are willing to take less and have been evaluating open
> source solutions.
> 
> 3) I was a professional programmer for 10 years, and believe me when I
> say that most of the automation software out there is VERY poorly
> written.  If I had produced code like that for final release on
> corporate projects I would have been fired at any of my old tech jobs.
> When haggling or negotiating new charges, increases in annual fees, etc.
> it is always best to point out the many flaws (bugs or usability issues)
> in the product, the number of hours of work staff loses each month in
> dealing with these flaws, how the flaws have affected your patron
> relations, etc.  It is hard for them to defend themselves against these
> points.  The programming behind these projects is not particularly
> complex (definitely not nearly as difficult as game programming) - there
> is no reason that they can't produce better products.
> 
> 
> - Jesse
> 
> 
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