STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Technology Review:
Designing the Small Office of the Future

By Naomi Kleid

Like many high-tech workers, I have progressed from working for a large corporation to owning a home-based company. I have encountered a variety of problems while installing office equipment, such as fax machines, scanners, PCs, and creating a local area network.

I have had problems to connect a new all-in-one device (which is supposed to be a scanner, copier, printer, and fax machine) to receive a fax over our phone line. After many phone calls, I learned that marketing people do not understand the fax software they ship, and device and software people cannot provide assistance on the hardware needed to attach the device to the phone line. Each help center had a product-centered, not user-centered, approach to user support that left us without a working fax machine.

Based on my problems, I compiled a "wish list" for designing the small home office of the future.

1. Simplify updating virus-checking software

A business owner should not have to invest time updating and running virus-checking software on each PC, and should not have to worry about whether e-mail correspondents are updating and running such software on their machines. Instead, e-mail service providers should screen mail and attachments before delivery and announce any problematic files before sending them to the recipient. It should also be possible to purchase a home-network subscription for virus protection, not a PC-by-PC subscription.

2. Integrate Virus Detection software in all transportable storage media

Transportable storage media such as USB storage devices and CDs, should contain virus detection software that prevents copying and storing virus-infected files to prevent files being transported from one PC to another.

3. Vendors should provide one-stop shopping, bundling, and either system-level-integrated or "integratable" solutions

People who sell and support office technology should understand all the elements of any solution a business owner wants to implement and how to integrate those elements together. Yes, I am suggesting one-stop shopping, bundling, and system-level-integrated or "integratable" solutions.

4. Turn questions into answers

Software manufacturers should document and answer questions about the hardware requirements of each product they sell and support.

5. Provide all the accessories (e.g. cables external switches, etc) needed to connect the devices.

Hardware manufacturers should provide all cables, external switches, etc. necessary to support the advertised functions of their products. If that makes the equipment non-price-competitive, then the manufacturer should include a "List of Additional Parts You May Need" (keyed to the functions the user wants to implement), that is part of the setup instructions and easy to find. The small-business-owner self-installer needs to know about any requisite hardware or software not included with a particular product.

6. The installation and integration processes should be tested until they are error-free.

The duration and number of calls to customer support go up, product returns increase, and customer satisfaction and brand loyalty decrease. We all know these things, but the amount of easily accessible (printed) getting-started information seems to be decreasing and the error rates in installation and integration processes seem to be increasing. Is it just my imagination, or are wait times to support centers getting longer and longer?

I would like to know what you think about these ideas and what kinds of requirements you have developed based on your home office experience. Please send me non-virus-infected e-mail at nakleid@mindspring.com. If you permit, we may share your ideas in a future issue. l