Whether it is for business or for personal use, finding the right software for any particular set of tasks is important to do – and often, hard to achieve. If you find that you regularly struggle with being able to find the best software for any job, that might be because you are not actually fully aware of what that software needs to be like. As it happens, however, there are a few key assets which the best software tends to have, and those are what we are going to be looking at today. In this post, we will explore some of the signs of the best software which they all have in common. As long as a piece of software has the following, or even just some of the following, you can probably feel that you can trust it, so these are definitely things to look out for as best as you can. Let’s take a look at what they are.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By nd3000
Easy To Use
First of all, you want to be able to feel that you can easily use a piece of software, even if that means undergoing a little training first and foremost. Some of the more complex pieces of software out there might require this training, but even so you want the software in question to have an intuitive usability which makes it easy for use for someone who has been given that training. As long as that is the case, you will find that you can make use of it much more effectively, and this can be especially important in business, where the levels of skill in people across the business vary drastically, and you need to make sure that everyone can eventually use the software. For these reasons, it is important to make sure that you prioritize feasibility above all else, as it is arguably the most important asset a piece of software can have at all.
Safe
Knowing what it means for a software to be safe is one thing, and hard enough; knowing how to check whether it is safe is something else altogether. The truth is that people slip up on both of these counts regularly, and it’s not hard to see why. If you are not particularly well versed in development or software design, it is hard to know whether a piece of software is truly safe or what it would look it if it were not. But it is one of the most important things of all, and something which we need to understand if we are going to ensure that the software we are using is as good as possible. For businesses in particular, this is likely to be hugely important, and not the kind of thing to overlook.
Safe software needs to have a focus on privacy and security, especially if it deals with the private data of individuals. Certain kinds of businesses in particular need to be sure of this, such as those using legal case management software or any software of this kind which contains sensitive data. This is one kind of safety, and is absolutely necessary to be sure of – but quite another kind of safety is the security of the software as it relates to the business’ or personal systems as a whole. In other words, you want to be as certain as possible that any software you use is not going to cause problems for your systems, either purposely or accidentally, and that should therefore be considered an essential sign of good software. If it is not safe, look elsewhere.
Open Source
Open source software is that in which the source code is provided, free, for all to see and edit. This means that anyone with the necessary skills and abilities can bring up the source code, edit it as they wish, and either keep that edited version of the software to themselves or distribute it for others to use and edit alike. This is a great way of effectively getting many heads together across the world to improve a piece of software to no end, and it’s very often a sign of very good software. What’s more, it tends to be free in cost, and that is definitely something that we would all agree is worthwhile. You should wherever possible look for open source versions of the software you want to use, as it will encourage the people developing that free software and it will mean that you have the chance to use something non-proprietary which could be even more effective than the branded version. This is absolutely one of the clearest signs of software that is worth using, so look out for it.
Compact
Ideally, you don’t want software to take up too much space on your computer, as that will lead to your computer being clunky and slowing down, and possibly even worsen the performance of the software itself as a result. In general, it’s good to go for compact versions of software wherever possible, as long as the compact version does not detract too much from the usability of it. This is something that you should absolutely consider a strong sign of a great piece of software, and it is equally important in personal and business use alike. Make sure that you look out for it, and choose the compact version of something where you have the option. You might be surprised at what a difference it can make.
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Respected
Finally, it’s worth remembering that there is a whole community out there to make use of, and we might as well do so if we want to end up using only that software which is going to be the best for our purposes – whatever those might be. That means going out and looking for reviews and forum posts, and just generally seeing how well respected a particular piece of software is. If it is highly respected, that is probably a good sign that it is going to be worth using, so that is something to consider above all.