"User Friendly?"

OnStar CIO, Jeff Liedel was recently profiled in InformationWeek. He asks, “How do you code for ‘user friendly’”? I developed my first mainstream business application which helped a group of Industrial Engineers to capture, analyze, and report data which they would collect on their consulting engagements to improve efficiencies in large businesses. I was appalled when some of them complained they not could figure out how to work my application. It was so obvious to ME.

The wonderful thing about people is that they come from all walks of life with endless experiences that shape their views and perspectives. An application's user interface (the visual screen display, menu’s, functions...) may make sense to one, but seem totally foreign to another.

I have a passion for learning and improving things. I love how technology is constantly shaping this. This is part of the reason that I became so committed to the SHO Technology. It allows a person who knows the application and business process to capture or record doing the job the right way. Using SHO Guide, this “script” may be distributed to everyone in the organization to complete the computer task correctly by guiding them step-by-step on the application they need to use to do their job. The formal name for this kind of learning is called “Performance Support.”

I have had a lot of fun creating various scripts to help guide friends and family members with various outcomes they desired on their applications. Now, if only I could figure out how to guide large organizations to find SHO Guide. When you have that one figured out, call me.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM users...

Customer Relationship Management(CRM) Solutions

Organizations that use Microsoft Dynamics CRM will experience substantial productivity gains by employing the guided help capabilities offered by Transcensus SHO technology. The guided help content library for Microsoft Dynamics CRM was developed with Transcensus’ award-winning SHO Guide(R) authoring solution and includes dozens of basic scenarios or workflows for the typical CRM user.

Each scenario is captured in an interactive learning script that delivers step-by-step guidance directly inside Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to assist the user in performing the task more efficiently with a corresponding reduction in errors. With this unique solution, users can be immediately productive with their CRM software without having to attend a training class or complete an online course.

To see this solution in action: http://www.transcensus.com/productdemo/1minuteoverview.html The content was optimized for a general installation of Dynamics CRM and is available upon request: info @ transcensus.com.

The Next Learning Frontier

Years ago, I spent a considerable amount of time as a classroom instructor. In the early days, I used transparencies on an overhead projector to teach people how to perform tasks in complex engineering software applications, as crazy and inefficient as that sounds to us today. When the digital projector made its debut, it was a significant innovation because one could actually demo a software application to new users while they followed along on their own systems. It wasn’t easy or especially efficient, but it was better than other alternatives at the time. Surpisingly, this methodology is still widely used today.

In the 90’s, a rather dramatic shift toward a new learning concept called “e-learning” occurred. Companies started to explore new and more innovative ways to teach some of the same concepts that were traditionally taught in the classroom environment, but in a new medium that allowed someone to access the information directly from their desktop.

Organizations rushed to embrace this new methodology. Results, however, were mixed. Many e-learning initiatives failed because the materials were nothing more than static, reformulated classroom resources that didn’t fully leverage the power of this newly discovered online medium. By many standards, the promises of e-learning were not fully realized in terms of measurably-improved worker productivity. Some became rather disillusioned by e-learning due to disappointing and unrealized ROI.

The “e” revolution eventually got legs, however, and new technologies, such as software simulations have emerged over the course of the last few years that have demonstrated even greater promise from an IT skills development perspective. However, the core issue—preventing someone from having to memorize countless procedures in software applications in order to complete job tasks—is still not addressed, even by these newest forms of learning. As a result, companies and organizations have continued to look toward the next learning innovation, the one that will finally help them to fully realize the promise of e-learning.

So what is on the horizon for the industry? What new innovations have emerged or will emerge that will significantly change the way we transfer knowledge? As I look ahead, I truly believe we are on the verge of another revolution. Performance Support (EPSS), a process by which learning is embedded directly in the workflow, has emerged rather dramatically in recent years as companies and organizations have started to realize the substantial and measurable benefits that can be gained by providing workers with on-the-job, task-embedded learning resources.

Performance Support is not traditional e-learning. It is a new and improved form of “e” in which emphasis is placed on delivery of content that helps someone complete job tasks by providing the right information to the right user at the right time. It’s learning at the moment of need—and it’s revolutionary in the way that it addresses the market need.

Our SHO technology takes all ambiguity and guesswork out of complex procedures that involve the use of software. It provides the capacity for even novice users of an application to be immediately productive in completing job tasks by providing step-by-step instructions to the user that interact directly with the graphical user interface of the application. There is nothing quite like it on the market today.

I would like to invite you to contact us to learn more about how SHO technology can change your thinking about the importance of the on-the-job component of your overall learning strategy. Visit us at http://www.transcensus.com/ for more information about our exciting Performance Support technology. I guarantee that you’ll be impressed and amazed by what you’ll see.

Simulation vs. SHO (Scripted Human Operator)

One of the questions I get on a regular basis is "What's the difference?" What they are asking is what's the difference between your SHO Technology and Simulation. Well the answer I usually give is that simulation is just that, simulation... and SHO walkes the user through the steps within the live application.

Now, I have seen it a thousand times, and once you see it "record and playback" (yes, I think we may need to change our terminology) you will fully understand the difference but until then, here's the scoop.

SHO: User is guided while working inside the actual software application by performing real interactions with the software application instead of simulated interaction.

Simulation: User works in a separate simulation window and must figure out how to apply what was done in the simulation window to the actual software application. The learning environment is disconnected from actual software application.

SHO: User creates real data during the learning or guidance process.

Simulation: User does not create real data during the learning process. Any "data" created in the simulation window is lost once the simulation ends.

SHO: Does not rely on video, animation or screen capture, so visual presentations are dynamic and can adjust to the current appearance and position of the software application and its interface components (toolbars, dialog boxes, etc).

Simulation: Creates static visual presentations of software interfaces that do not adjust to user-defined configurations (toolbar and dialog box placement, interface settings, etc.).

SHO: Majority of content remains viable across new versions of the software application, resulting in longer content shelf life.

Simulation: Visual presentation must be updated with each new version of the software application.

SHO: Reduces bandwidth requirements for remote content.

Simulation: Heavier bandwidth requirements for remote content.

SHO: Visual presentation is language neutral to allow for easy localization.

Simulation: Visual presentation is static and language specific and must be recaptured for other languages.

SHO: Provides intelligent verification of how the user is using the software inside the actual software application.

Simulation: Verifies user interactions with the simulation window only.

SHO: Eliminates the need to switch back and forth between the software application and a training or simulation window.

Simulation: User must switch back and forth between the software application and the simulation window.

SHO: Eliminates the need to resize windows in order to display a separate simulation window.

Simulation: User must adjust window sizes to display both the actual software application and the simulation window.

End User Adoption - Mom's email...

It's amazing to me (and somewhat embarrassing I might add) that for the past 14 years, I've been implementing Enterprise Time and Attendance applications at some of the largest companies in North America and until recently had little to no insight into "performance support."

When Dan Peay (Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Transcensus) first showed me the SHO Guide product I was left speechless, and if you knew me, you would know that is quite a feat. Once I recovered from the initial shock, I began to think about all those years of answering the same question over and over about the same features in our applications.

A good personal example would be my Mom; she would call me regularly to ask how to open her web email. I would say in a calm helpful voice from 1,500 miles away, “open the browser… no it’s a hyperlink on your desktop, a hyperlink is a … forget that part… no the one that looks like a lower case e, no the blue one…” you get my drift... so when I got a hold of SHO Guide what do you think the first script I ever wrote was??? You got it… Mom’s email, I called it “CLICK HERE FOR EMAIL” and put it on her desktop in the middle of her screen.

Implementations of Enterprise software applications are not only challenging but costly, and end user adoption is much more difficult than showing Mom how to get to her email. Users who simply want to “get it done” without all the “rigamorol…” tend to revert to their old ways while you are pushing to get them to understand the benefits of the new way.

Bottom line, if you can provide a script that walks the end user through their given task or workflow, step by step within the application, you’ve just eliminated the majority of issues with early end user adoption.

About Transcensus

Founded in 2004, Transcensus is dedicated to the cause of improving software usability through the introduction of a new interactive platform for authoring and delivery of performance support and job assistance content. In 2007, Transcensus received the Performance Centered Design (PCD) Award for the SHO Technology.

SHO Guide is an advanced authoring tool that allows subject matter experts, managers, software trainers and IT professionals to create, without any programming knowledge, job assistance and performance support content called scripts. These scripts interact directly with live software applications to guide employees and software users through the proper execution of software procedures. An easy-to-use recording feature captures important software procedures as they are performed in real time and converts them into fully-interactive, step-by-step instructions in multiple languages simultaneously.

At Transcensus, all of our combined learning experience has pointed us to the vital importance of connecting learning and readiness to the immediacy of performing the task. With the dramatic changes that are occurring in the IT training industry and the ever increasing need to embed learning within the process, performance support was clearly the right focus, but existing performance support technology solutions and methodologies were difficult to use, difficult to implement, and/or too expensive.

Software applications are challenged with these same issues. It often seems humanly impossible to do what we desire to do, even with advertised features of the software. Transcensus focused on both problems. We desired to put the “human interface” into software and provide moment of need performance support for the masses. Our focused effort resulted in the development of what we call SHO Technology.

Our patent-pending Scripted Human Operator™ (SHO) technology is an exciting innovation in software performance support and user assistance. It allows content developers to create truly interactive software instructional, assistance and support content that interfaces directly with windows software applications.

SHO content can be embedded directly within the workflow. While completing job related tasks, workers interact directly with the live software application they are attempting to use, instead of a browser, simulation window or other external training interface. In other words, the actual software application is the training interface. SHO technology can be thought of as a virtual instructor or tutor looking over the user's shoulder and offering step-by-step guidance inside the actual software application the user is attempting to use.

SHO Guide currently records on many .NET, Java Swing or browser-based software applications. However, we do not guarantee nor do we recommend that it is used with applications that have not been optimized.