Practical Goals


Practical goals bridge the gap between the objectives of the company and the objectives of the individual user. The corporation wants everyone working hard to maximize the corporate bottom line. The practical goal of handling the client's demands connects the corporate goal of higher profits with the user's personal goal of being productive.

PRACTICAL GOALS

Avoid meetings

Handle the client's demands

Record the client's order

Create a numerical model of the business

Practical goals have more appeal than the touchy-feely personal goals, especially to sober businesspeople and nerdy programmers. True to their nature, they create software that although it admirably fulfills the practical goals fails utterly to satisfy the individual user. A task-based interface can provoke users to make mistakes and obstruct their ability to be personally productive, making them feel bad about themselves and the software.

Of course your software has to have the features built into it to accomplish the goals of the business. The user must perform the tasks necessary to handle clients' demands and process orders, but these are only hygienic, because offering these features without addressing the user's personal goals will fail. If the user fails to achieve her own personal goals, she cannot effectively achieve the company's. It is a simple fact of human nature that happy, satisfied workers are more effective ones. This is truer than ever in the modern information economy, in which the true assets of a company are human and not mechanical. On the other hand, if your software ignores practical goals and serves only the user's goals, you will have just designed a computer game.



Inmates Are Running the Asylum, The. Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy &How to Restore the Sanity - 2004 publication
ISBN: B0036HJY9M
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 170

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