“New ideas that are simpler to understand are adopted more rapidly than innovations that require the adopter to develop new skills and understanding, such as the Dvorak keyboard.” (Diffusion of Innovations, p. 15)
Complexity comes in a few different flavors that I have identified – and I am sure there are more: physically, mentally and theoretically.
PHYSICALLY
Let’s talk virtually physical. Let’s say that a new process is put in place (which will happen somewhere / sometime when social learning is introduced). If I can’t navigate my way through it simply, I will resist it. Just like the process change in this story, it needs to be simple.
To use Twitter we needed to go to the website. Any updates? The web site. Check other’s tweets? The web site. It wasn’t until third party apps came out – like Twhirl & Tweetdeck and plugins like Twitterfox – that Twitter took off. Why? They took the complexity away from getting and giving updates. Now it is simple to crank out and flood ourselves with 140 characters.
MENTALLY
Imagine being accustomed to a simple, easy to understand text editor. Now switch that to one that uses HTML and shows HTML as you use it. How much use will it get? Not much. This is exactly why the ‘Pages’ feature of a NING network are not used very often (did you even know they had one?). It is too complex to learn and so users simply don’t (even though personally I think a true wiki would be a GREAT addition and would love to see it added).
THEORETICALLY
I set up a NING network for a home school group our family is involved in. The feedback overwhelmingly positive for so many reasons. But, as you can guess, there are a couple people who don’t like it. One teacher in particular doesn’t like it because she is not sure that parents are reading her reports on the blog. She knows that with email it is right in front of them and so, in her estimation, it is read. But with a blog post no one NEEDS to look at it and so she fears they might not.
It is difficult for her to make the theoretical jump. I won’t go into the reasons why it is a good move (I think we all know those), but in her mind it is too complex to make the shift. It does not make sense to her. You will find many people who have a hard time getting over this hump. Heck, I was just talking with a customer service manager today who had a phone conversation with a guy who won’t use email. To him, it is a waste of time and too complex.
If we want to overcome the complixity issue, make things as simple as possible. Web sites should naturally take you where you want (they want you) to go. It should not be hard to get there – wherever ‘there’ is. Finding information should be a snap. If they can’t find what they need, it will be too complex and won’t be adopted.
Lesson learned: MAKE IT EASY for them to do what they need to do.
