If you are preparing software requirements for an upcoming development project, you may be focused on creating the most user-friendly program available. You may have specific functional requirements for the program, such as facilitating your sales staff or your engineering team in some way. However, in order to make a program truly beneficial for the functional applications you have in mind, it may need requirements tools to boost productivity and facilitate the easy completion of specific tasks. These are factors that boil down to how usable the program is. There are some simple tips you can follow when drafting your software requirements that can make your program more usable for your team.
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Focus on the Ease of Learning
Focus on the Ease of LearningYour team’s first experiences with the program will be during training sessions and with trial and error efforts on their own. Ease of learning and ease of usability are two very different things in the development world, but how easy it is for your team to learn specific functions of the program can dictate how easy it is to apply certain features of the program in practical use. Therefore, your first step should be on making the program easy for your users to learn how to use.
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Incorporate Pop Up Help Windows
Even with basic training sessions on the proper use of the program, your team may still have questions about the program from time to time as they use it on a daily basis. Rather than expect your team to fiddle with the program until they stumble upon the answers they are looking for, you can create pop up help windows that offer practical advice and tips. As you tinker with the program during test sessions, you can advise your developer of areas of application that may need pop up help windows.
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Make Help Topics Searchable
Even with pop up help windows and after your team has been properly trained on the use of the program, questions still may arise from time to time. You can instruct your developer in the software requirements to create a searchable help section in the program. This can be a costly and time-consuming feature to incorporate, and this is because it is akin to incorporating a full training manual on all features in the program. However, if your program will be used by many or if it has complicated functional abilities, this can be helpful.
When developing a software program, you understandably want your team to maximize its use for their benefit in the workplace. Usability is one of the most significant factors that will impact how beneficial a program is. You can enhance the usability of your program through these tips.