We look at software as both an art and a science. In order to build good custom software, you have to have true designers involved along the way. If not, you could end up with a tool that doesn’t meet your needs – and you might not even know that it could be better. We’ve seen a lot of bad code over the years.
Here are the top 5 signs you’ve got bad software:
- Unreliable Software
If your software breaks, and then suddenly isn’t broken, and then is broken again, but not in the same way – or even in the same way, but not in the same place – we’ve seen it before, and it’s bad software - Big effort for small output
If you need to do just as much work to accommodate your software as you would to do the job manually – it can be done better, and it’s bad software. - Slow Software
If your software worked just fine before, but now at 300 users it grinds to a halt every Thursday at 2pm – it could have been planned better, and it’s bad software. - Inconsistent Software
If you don’t know what your software is going to do because sometimes it does one thing and sometimes it does another – it wasn’t thought through, and it’s bad software. - Irrelevant Information
If you log in and have to click 18 times before you get to the information you need every day– your time is being wasted, and it’s bad software.
The goal of good software is to make a process out of repetitive tasks, reduce manual labor, increase productivity, take away human error and support decision-making. If it’s not doing those things, maybe it’s time to go back to the drawing board!
The impact of bad software is that users get fed up with using a tool that was either not built with them in mind, not built well or is simply not worth their effort. And then they stop using it. That is not only a waste of your company’s investment, but you’re now also missing out on organizational memory. If someone solves a problem manually, that experience benefits them as a single user. But that solution is probably actually relevant to a whole department or even facility, who don’t even know what they’re missing out on.
Software is meant to reduce the labor required by humans and free up those brain cycles for things that humans are great at – analytical thought, emotional thought. Machines can’t do the hard stuff (yet), but they can remove the repetitive formulaic work. Software should be awesome at that. By definition software is the formalization of the logic behind business processes that is then translated into consistent, repeatable, scalable code. Software can be great.
So if your software isn’t doing its job – for whatever reason – you’re losing out. Big time.
For more, read our case studies on software modernization.