Whether it is included on a new piece of tech you have invested in or you are being asked to use a certain program for work, there are many reasons why you need to work out if a software is right for you.
You need to establish this as soon as possible; working for six months with software which you find clumsy can be extremely unproductive and not beneficial to you or anyone you are working with.
Here are some of the things you should do if you need to quickly work out whether a software is right for you.
Is It Pleasing to Your Eye?
It might sound silly but basic aesthetics can give us more insight than you might believe. If you take one look at a program’s user interface and you can’t work out where any of the basic tools are, this is a major indication that the software is not right for you.
You need something which you find to be wholly intuitive; if it isn’t you are going to waste precious time attempting to track down functions which are not where you think they should be.
Can It Handle Everything You Need to Throw at It?
You might need the software to behave differently depending on what project you are running through it. For example, if you are a PCB designer then you might have a very simple circuit design one week and a complex, multi-layered project next.
The software should be able to scale up or down depending on your needs. A high-end piece of design software such as Altium is indeed capable of doing this and will be able to work closely with both simple and complex designs to deliver the same positive result each time.
Do Processes Get Easier the More You Use the Software?
No matter how intuitive a piece of software initially appears to be, the only way to truly determine whether or not it is going to work out for you is to sit down and actually try it out for a trial period. This is a fantastic policy to go with as you might discover that something you initially thought was difficult might improve over time. Most software comes with an offer of a free trial so you should capitalise on it where you can.
However, a free trial can also just confirm your initial first impression; you don’t like the software. If you feel like you dislike this program the more you use it then it might be time to speak to your employer or client about using something else. At the end of the day, you are the designer and if you feel impeded by a project then there is a risk it might show in your work.
Fully testing the capabilities of a software is an important step in adopting new technology. Don’t be afraid to speak up if there is something you don’t like; it is better to start the trial process again than deliberately hinder yourself with something you don’t like.