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Filed under Business on May 6, 2008 by Josh Diehl

When technology isn't the power behind a killer software feature

Like so many people I waited until the last minute to do my 2007 taxes. After some deliberation I decided to prepare them myself with the caveat that I'd need software to help.  I did a little research and decided to go with Intuit's TurboTax desktop version.  Intuit also offers an online version of Turbotax for about half the price but I wanted control over my data and didn't want to get locked into one vendor for next year. 

On whole I think they've gotten the user experience down to about a B+.  Its questionnaire format does a good job of guiding you through the various tax issues and making sure you're saving as much money as is allowed.  Once completed it can be a little confusing when you need to change something but overall my complaints were minor. Solid but unremarkable software.

Except... Turbotax had a trump up its sleeve.  It turns out they've negotiated data sharing agreements with a range of payroll providers, including mine. I was shocked to discover that in about 60 seconds (after entering my provider's ID and then a figure from my W2 as a "password") all of my wage information was imported automatically.  No typing, no double checking.  Wow! What a killer feature. Not only did it validate my decision to purchase Turbotax it got me excited enough to come into the office the next day and rave about it.

It struck me that the real work in including this feature wasn't accomplished at the keyboard but in the board room.  Sure it was probably hard work to format and import the data but the real sweat was in getting all those payroll providers to sign up and share their information.  It seems like an obvious move but it took someone at Intuit to not only have the bright idea but to pick up the phone and start calling payroll companies.

I think software folks too often attack problems with a strictly technical mindset.  Can you picture the W2 brainstorming meeting?  "What if we have them scan the W2 then OCR the data?  Wait! What if they enter only half the fields and we can calculate the rest?"  Technical wizardry is great but it's only one tool in the software palette.  It's easy for developers (and ex-developer manager-types) to default to this way of thinking.  It's in their comfort zone, it doesn't require unpleasantness like negotiations and contracts, and it offers the chance to write whiz-bang code. For some challenges the technical approach works, but for others it's sub-optimal or just impossible.

The marketplace has lots of examples of software that wouldn't have succeeded without this approach: Apple's iTunes store, OpenTable's reservations, Seamlessweb's ordering.  All of these work because people at those companies were willing to step out of the realm of code and do some old-fashioned horse trading.  In the context of software as a product, the non-technical approach can mean golden opportunities for companies versatile enough to take it. 

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