Ease of Use: Unique vs. Innovative

Every vendor claims that their product is easy to use. But I think there is a misconception on what easy to use really implies. Easy to use to one user, may be in fact counter-intuitive to another. There is a major difference between being unique and innovative when it comes to ease to use. Take, for example, CATIA and SolidWorks. Both owned by the same company. Granted developed from the ground up separately and arguably targeted to different markets.

But I don't believe there are two codes on the market that do much of the same things but are orders of magnitude different from one another in what I consider ease of use. Does easier to use mean less powerful? I'll save that for a different post.

But back to ease of use. I have been driving SolidWorks since SW95. So, I consider myself pretty capable. I have been driving CATIA for half as long. However, I just attended a CATIA course this past summer. I love intro training classes. I really don't believe there is a better way to become a power user than learning the "method behind the madness".

So there I was in a room full of guys from my company all power users of at least 2-3 separate CAD systems and many of us walked in with a biased dislike for CATIA. Why is that? Well, because it is drastically different than most of the other CAD systems. Clearly, CATIA has some more functionality than many of the others, but why is it so different?

I am not that picky of a user. I can usually figure stuff out. Roll with it, as they say. RMB for this one, rather than LMB. Ok, all good, I'll figure it out. But CATIA is drastically different in all aspects. Extrusion/protrusion is a PAD!? A cutout is a POCKET!? Ever try and rotate, pretty funky.

Sounds like I am just bashing poor ole CATIA. Not really. About half way through the first day of the training, I was actually digging it. Check out a faucet in CATIA R17 above. Keep in mind though, I was psyched that I was able to create a LOFT, SWEEP, booleans etc. Very basic things. I was beginning to understand what they expected me as the user to do. Seems counter-intuitive to me. Remember, I am looking at CAD from a simulation perspective. I don't really care about the detailing capability. But, I need to open a production level model and have a handle of the basic modeling functionality. I appreciate uniqueness, but not at a cost of learning "their" methodology. Rather I want them to adopt to "mine and yours".

Now on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have SolidWorks. I gotta admit, I really like SW. I always have. In the beginning, I was drawn to them because they were the underdog. Up against big bully Pro/e. But literally, SW changed the way people view CAD. But I will go one step further. I think they changed the way engineer's look at software in general. They have blazed the trail for FEA and CFD vendors to actually follow suit and concentrate on developing GUIs that can be driven by the masses. What I love about SW is that "they allow you to do what you want, how you want to do it". If that enters their marketing literature, I want my cut. Check out the same faucet in SW2008 below.

The look and feel of SW is pretty straight forward. They took a little fromn Pro, a little from UG etc and alot of their own special sauce all wrapped into one. So, if you like to have to fully define your sketch, ok. If you don't, ok. Are you a RMB kind of guy or do you prefer dialog boxes? When in a command there are no less than three ways to click "Ok". That is innovation in my book. It's not over crowding the interface but rather appealing to people from all walks of life. They definitely do things different than others, but when you see it, you get it right away.

Quite frankly, others are falling in line. Inventor has come leaps and bounds and is becoming a true competitor. UGNX5 is slick. I never thought I would say that. Others have some catching up to do, sorry Solid Edge. Pro/e, well, they are definitely unique.

I am fortunate to be working closer with european companies this year. So, perhaps, I will have a different take on CATIA as we move forward. Sitting in a Starbucks in London right now about to kick off a week visting companies in the UK. More soon..