Is there a crisis in the community?

I just went to the first SolidWorks user group meeting in Richmond, VA tonight. A couple of weeks ago, the 100th US user group was started in Augusta, GA, so this is probably #101. Sometimes I feel like I live in a bit of a bubble because I work for the most part by myself, but I try to stay in touch with other users, and I do a lot of stuff with user groups. I know what I do can’t be classified as “real” because the book writing stuff is pretty idealized, and most of my modeling work is pretty far removed from what most of the users I run into do. It’s easy to get caught up just in the little corner of the world where I live. User groups are a great place for me to re-connect with reality.

So I had my presentation ready to go, a general tips session on SW07 and 08. When I started I asked how many people were using 2008. Out of about 40 people, 2 raised their hands. When I asked why people weren’t using the new software, I got answers that fell into two categories: because of the new interface, and we have enough bugs in 2007, why do we need more?

Something in the air

There is something in the air in the SolidWorks community these days, and I hope SolidWorks has the ability to see it for themselves and do something about it. There is a lot of increasingly vocal discontent. I have been approached off-line by three high-profile people active in the SolidWorks community this week with serious misgivings about the direction of the product. This is not imagined. Go to the SolidWorks forums and look for the frowny faces and thumbs down smileys. There have always been people who complain about the software, but there are two changes in the tone of these complaints – the people doing the complaining are not the typical screamers, and the underlying noise has been turned up a notch or two.

Reason #1: Users want quality software

One of the questions that came out of the Q&A session at tonights user group meeting was how do we get SolidWorks attention when it comes to product quality? That, my friend, is the $64,000 question. I’ve been involved in quality initiatives of one type or another, and they all start with an explanation of all the things that they are doing to catch problems, and they all end in the same place we started. SolidWorks is convinced they are doing everything they could possibly do, but we don’t seem to make much progress. I have to say that I’ve never felt that anything I have ever participated in has ever resulted in less buggy software.

I should probably qualify that a little. By my non-scientific measure, crash bugs are way down compared to say 2001. That much seems clear to me anyway, and it is a notable acheivement, but it comes at a cost. The cost is that the number of little annoying bugs seems to be up. Given the choice, the current situation is preferable to crash bugs, but still, the situation is unacceptable. SolidWorks is treating the software as if it is a retail consumer commodity, with more attention to quantity than quality.

Visualize whirled peas

One of the group members looked a little puzzled when some of the others were talking about specific little things that are clearly wrong. I don’t doubt that there are users who rarely see bugs. I visualize the whole problem kind of like this:

This is basically how I see SW bug structure. The center ring is the really core stuff in SolidWorks – extrudes and revolves. This stuff gets the most attention, and it is rare to find a real bug in the first two rings. As you get further away from the center, you’re going to find more and more bugs. There is far less traffic out in the Yellow, Orange and Red bands. When there is little traffic, SW allows more bugs. Granted, that’s an efficient way to handle things if you don’t really care what the folks out on the fringes think of you. Unfortunately, I spend most of my time in Yellow and Orange, making a conscious decision to avoid anything in the Red, because out that far from civilization, you are truly on your own. Support people don’t know what the software out there does, and you’re frankly lucky to find anything that works reliably.\n\nMost users stay inside the green circle (3rd ring counting from the center). This is well trodden safe territory, and most of the kinks are worked out of most of it. Do those of us who work in the outer rings really have to accept inferior software? Well, yes, it seems so. SolidWorks cannot be all things to all people, they prove that pretty strongly. Maybe folks like me get pushed to Rhino, a software that focusses more on those Yellow and Orange rings.

Reason #2: What has happened to the interface?

A lot of long time SolidWorks users feel that the rug has been unceremoniously yanked out from under us with the SolidWorks 2008 interface. You can still find some people who say that after working with it for a while they were able to get used to it, maybe make it almost as good as it used to be through what settings remain, and some even say they prefer it. So far, all of these folks are the early adopter risk takers or the blind optimist types. I have yet to see anyone take an analytical look at the interface changes and come away with a favorable impression. In case anyone has been under a rock and missed what I think is wrong:

– CommandManager has fewer options: can’t undock it, can’t dock to side, can’t put other toolbars next to it, is not easy to add complete new toolbar

– CommandManager tabs are small and hard to click

– scrollbars and screen splitters have been removed presumably to save space

– heads up View toolbar is not flexible enough to be usable (limited tools) and yet is not easy to get rid of

– all of the interface elements that are running into the upper right hand corner of the graphics window are causing an inexcusable train wreck: confirmation corner, task mgr tabs, window control icons, heads up view toolbar all potentially overlap with one another in the corner.

– the Office 2007 ribbon interface is widely reviled, no sense in immitating something so widely despised – instead of looking for a tool in a line of icons, you have to scan a 2D area of icons and text in various positions, which is a big mental shift

– taking apart the RMB menus I think turns out to be a bad idea. I can never find the thing I’m looking for. For example, the Hide Body tool is no longer under the Body heading in the RMB menu, it is shown as an icon in the toolbar area of the RMB menu. So I first have to determine that its not where it should be in the 1 dimensional list, and then I have to scan the 2D toolbar for something that could be a Hide function, look at the Tooltip and then click the button. This takes WAY longer than just going to the selection in the RMB menu. The alternative is to re-memorize the entire RMB interface.

– possibly my biggest complaint has to do with the choice of defaults on install with 2008. They are trying to force feed you the most radical settings by default, thus forcing you to deal with the interface right up front. This is reason enough to avoid installing it. If they had chosen more “default-ish” defaults, I think they could have avoided so many reactions that are so negative, but they are forcing the issue. Bad plan, guys. Very bad plan.

They seem to be treating the software as if it is some research project and they are simply presenting their results. I’ve got news for you: people are using this software, and you need to understand their needs. These people are paying to use this software. The software doesn’t need to be so self-promoting, it should serve the needs of the people who paid for it.

SolidWorks interface development people need some hard lessons in software implementation and CAD management. Even without seeing things through the eyes of real end users, if they just looked at the implementation and management aspects of what they have done to literally hundreds of thousands of users, they might have chosen a different path. The changes in 2008 are irresponsible.

I personally believe that one of the causes of the current situation is that SolidWorks is an increasingly bureaucratic company. It was inevitable, really. Falling as a victim of their own success. I’m sorry to see this. I hesitate to say much, because I do count some SW employees as friends, but here and there you see careerism take precedence over user needs. Its frustrating when you know you are talking to the right person, and you know they are hearing you and understand the issue, yet nothing ever happens. The question is never seriously raised.

Conclusion

What can you say after that? Users are frustrated. They feel that the company and the product have taken a sharp left turn with the 2008 release. Another focus group? Hire a consultancy to get to the root of users frustration? No, how about some good old fashioned common sense. It would make a nice change, anyway.