Aussies like their technology at home but not in the office!

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 01 April 2009 14:00

Business IT - Technology

Supposedly, Australia’s love affair with technology and gadgets stops at the office door, with many of us apparently confused by overly-complicated business software, and wasting up to five hours a week as we battle with our computers at work.

According to research undertaken for Global Graphics, a developer of edocument and printing software, while Australia is enthusiastically going digital at home, with the likes of Facebook, iPods, digital cameras and games consoles, in the workplace technology is proving a real turn off.
 
Gary Fry, CEO of Global Graphics, says the survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,010 Australian office workers, found that more than two thirds (69 per cent) of workers surveyed say they found business software difficult to use, with the two most common complaints that software applications offer too much functionality, and insufficient training.

“The lesson to developers of business software is clear,” says Fry, “take a leaf out of the consumer world and make your software easier to use.”

“ Make sure it quickly and easily does exactly what the user wants, and focus on that instead of adding more and more features and functions that only a handful of ‘power-users’.”

The research also showed that office workers love carefully designed consumer technology, and hate having to use overly-complicated business software.

 Fry described as “shocking” the finding that 93 percent of office workers estimated they lose up to five hours every working week as a result of business software being difficult to use.
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