JoshSweeney

Driving New User Adoption

As a technology consultant of small to medium businesses I am always presented with challenges that require me to learn new software or technology. In learning these new systems I have come to have a more intimate understanding about the challenges with adopting technology solutions.

The common theme that I have found is that the easier software is to learn, the more likely someone is to adopt a solution. This doesn’t mean that the UI has to be 100% dummy proof or it has to be #1 in its market. There has been a many times that I have passed on what was considered to be the best software in its space because the documentation just didn’t get me to where I needed to be.

While learning all of these new solutions I have found three areas that make the biggest difference when someone is a new user. These are the documentation, step-by-step hows to’s ( video/written ), and the forum thread response rate.

The first place that most people start is with the documentation. They want to know how to install, if it has dependencies, what it runs on, and every other piece of information they need to get moving forward. I have made it through many installations only because of prior knowledge in other areas. I have also had the experience to work with customers that did not have the prior experience nor adequate documentation. This is even more important in the open source software world. In open source the user may not have a salesperson or sales engineer which means that if they hit a roadblock and cannot find an answer in a timely manner then they go elsewhere.

Step-by-step tutorials are the next step after full documentation. Documentation is normally “the manual” that goes over product sections and provides explanations into what each section does. The tutorials are what really gets the user moving forward in figuring out exactly what to do in the areas of the product that they need. The most effective structure for tutorials that I have found is to keep them short and problem or area specific. For videos short would mean about 5 minutes. It is also helpful to new users to have tutorials in two sections. The first being tutorials that build on each other and the second being tutorials that stand alone. This way if someone wants to sit down and go through the getting started scenario just learn about the solution then they can. If they already have an understanding of the solution then they can pick tutorials that fill an immediate need to learn a specific area.

The last area that supports new user inquiries is the forum. After a user has been given good documentation and tutorials, the only place that is left for them to find answers is in the forum. Many companies show that they have a forum for assistance but I have found that the true indicator is activity. If I am trying out new software and end up looking in the forum and seeing that a large portion of threads have zero replies then I can assume that when I post, I have a high probability of leaving empty handed. For the sake of user adoption, I would say that you need to get those threads answered.

For new users to adopt software they need answers as quickly as possible. When they get answers quickly and efficiently they are more likely to move forward with adoption and they have less of a reason to search for other solutions.

Tags: documentation, forums, new users, tutorials, user adoption