Usability

My first company was called Intuitive Computer Solutions. A terrible name; computers weren't intuitive in 1994, nor was most of the software. And it was generic, bland. 

So we upgraded to Versicom. No, we weren't great at branding. 

So we sold computers to the hapless public, speaking the wonders of Windows 3.1. But we'd get calls. Lots of calls. The quality of some of the motherboards we used wasn't great, and Windows had a lot of issues with a bunch of different devices, so we got calls. 

We sold computers running an operating system that required training. So we offered classes in Dos, Windows, Word, and Excel. The more people wanted to learn, the more we could make with classes. 

And that's where I learned about the glassy-eyed look. 

I'd see someone trying to understand what the software expected from them, and they couldn't find it. And they'd get this confused look as they sunk into the abyss that was Microsoft usability at the time. 

We moved on from the consumer side and into services, and ultimately ChiliSoft--named by Lancastrian Hai Banh, the first developer of ChiliReports--and then life became much different, as usability wasn't an issue with application server software. 

When Dave and I started Mission Research, I had just developed a web-based donor management tool for Witness, which had just split off from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. Gillian had about 12 spreadsheets with names and donation history--it was a real mess. 

So I volunteered to help. And got pretty far--it wasn't a bad app, but it didn't always work. That really wasn't helpful, so I put them on a path to move over to Salesforce.com, which didn't have a nonprofit version, but it worked more reliably. 

But during that experience I saw how poorly designed and expensive other donor management software was. And because it was poorly designed, it required paid training, adding insult to injury. 

I wanted to correct those injustices--that waste of donor money on poorly designed software that took nonprofits' scarce dollars, plus days of employee time, away from their core missions. 

And so we started Mission Research and released GiftWorks. 

Our design was inspired by the browser and Microsoft Money 1999. This was one product Microsoft largely nailed; it was simple to understand and use. Why? 

The design was based on a poorly named approach: the Intuitive User Interface. But the concepts were sound.