If IT were a Woodshop

Reposting from my work blog, because I wrote it and the analogy cracks me up.

A bit about my background before we get into an extended metaphor: I came in to the world of IT through a minor in Computer Science and a secondary field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). HCI is an interesting field - interdisciplinary by nature, it combines Computer Science, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology - you name it. I usually say I like people more than I like computers and I like computers a whole lot... I'm very interested in how technology influences society which then influences technology - it's an interesting feedback loop. One example was back when the Facebook group "Jon Stewart for President" was started about 4 years ago  ​(unless it was Stephen Colbert...either way).A "cultural phenomenon" occured - the FB group hit one million users faster than anything that had been seen before, so much so that Facebook had to scramble on the server side of things to even support the size of the group and the pace at which it was growing. This is a cool example of that feedback loop - 1) The tech had to exist, 2) society had to be invested in it and 3)society drove technological change. So that's HCI in a nutshell (but it's a VAST field).

So, I was thinking about users and IT and some of the typical frustrastions between business users and IT. To be clear here, I'm not talking about our IT specifically - from my days as a consultant I saw a lot of different IT groups and a lot of their interactions with users, and similar patterns happened across the board. Let's say IT is a woodshop. You go to IT with two pieces of wood and says "I need these two pieces of wood joined together". IT goes back to their shop with some tools, mysteriously disappears for a while, and comes back in what seems like a ridiculously long time with your two pieces of wood joined together with some nails.

More often than not... it's not what you expected based on the model you had in your mind of how you needed the two pieces of wood joined and it's not really useful to you, leading to a sense of frustration and wasted time. There are a lot of different ways of joining two pieces of wood - if you're making a picture frame, it's probably substantially different than how you would join two pieces of wood together to build a step stool or if you just have two short pieces that need to be one long piece. Maybe you didn't need nails at all - maybe screws were the right fastener, or maybe you actually needed a hinge.

In a lot of cases, this is a question of communication. At some point between the User and the developer/wood shop worker, there needs to be a question asked, or a conversation that follows -  "Well, what are you trying to do with this? Will you ever need to take it apart? How much force does the joint need to support?". In many cases this conversation never happens, and IT products are created based on a model of the words used to describe the surface of the problem you were trying to fix ... that doesn't match your expectations. Granted, some users hand over detailed specifications of exactly what they need, but generally the ownership of clearly defining the problem lies... somewhere between the user and the developper (though in a lot of cases, I think the user ends up feeling bad that they didn't know how to describe their problem or need. It's NOT your fault, I promise).

Then there's usability. Let's say the product comes back from IT and it works for what you needed it to do - but they used nails that were too long, so there are some sharp and pointy ends. It works, but you have to be REALLY careful how you handle the product or you might get hurt, or worse, you might get tetanus. Now, most IT software products aren't going to give you tetanus, but poor usability can leave you feeling frustrated - things like putting in tons of data only to find the system didn't save for some unknown  or poorly explained reason.

I guess my point is that the frustration is totally understandable - I want to help be that communication bridge so that we're working on things that matter and help you do your work more efficiently, and that we're not wasting anyone's time designing something that doesn't work as you expected it to. We can only get to things that work if we talk about it - so let's talk!
On that note, this comic is one of my favorites on the subject :