dvorak

QWERTY was intended to slow you down.  You would think in this day and age that it should be a failure.  August Dvorak came up with a much more efficient way to type.

It obviously didn’t stick.  Why?  Rohit explains some here.  He said,

“…because nearly anyone who had to type had already learned how to use the inefficient system of the QWERTY keyboard at fast speeds and was unwilling to learn a new system.”

I will also add that most people and companies are invested (either time or money) into the old way (See Diffusion of Innovations).  Why not switch?!  We might say, “Sure, they are invested, but come on!  It is vastly superior!  Why on earth would you not want to make the change?”

Clearly, being superior is not a good enough reason.  It is factor and without it rarely do people jump to a new technology, process, idea, etc.  It really must be there (or at least believed it is there).  But all alone it is not enough.

Helping people change the way they work because it is better is not a good enough reason.  We can’t assume better =  higher adoption or it will be our failure  Use that as a check off and then focus on the other reasons that create a barrier to adoption.