Customer expectations

Last October after presenting a keynote at the Conquest software testing conference I was invited to speak at an internal quality conference at SAP. At first it may seem a bit odd because Microsoft and SAP do compete within one market segment; however we also do collaborative work on other projects. Regardless of the company we work for, I do believe that most software engineers are intent on doing the best possible job they can to produce the best possible product they can that will ultimately provide a high value solution to the end user customer.

The common theme throughout the conference was the need to improve quality. In my keynote I suggested that customers demand higher quality because the end user customers of today are very different than the customers of yesterday. Today, software permeates virtually all aspects of our life. Today, software is found in children's toys, in our automobiles, and even in toothbrushes. A decade ago computer users were accustomed to periodic anomalies and  assumed it was the price of technology; however the end user customers today have much higher expectations of software and  presume it will simply work and provide an easy solution that offers some perceived value in their lives!

In my keynote address to the engineers at SAP I described how I would sometimes say "my Mom wouldn't understand how to do such and such" when describing ambiguous functionality, but in order to remain successful and competitive in today's market we need to consider designing and developing software for our children and future generations. Of course we want our existing customers (and my mom) to feel comfortable using our software, but it is readily apparent that our children want a very different experience and have higher expectations from software.