One of the questions that has come up as we’ve been training instructors on using the new learning management system, Desire2Learn, goes something like this: Why are they making us learn a new, complicated system when Blackboard did everything I needed it to?

It seems like a reasonable question. I’m not going to tell certain instructors that they aren’t using enough instructional technology when they’re getting their students to learn without it. If they are just using the Learning Management System to post their syllabus and e-mail students, I’m not going to tell them they should change their teaching style just for the sake of using the advanced features of a new system. And part of me feels guilty for making them take the time to learn a new system when they aren’t going to use the exciting, new features that were the reason for the change.

But for logistical and financial reasons, DePaul can only have one active Learning Management System, and the powers that be had to choose the one that they thought would best meet the needs of all instructors—including those who are teaching purely online classes and who need a lot of control and flexibility from the Learning Management System.

But this tension between different kinds of users is not unique to DePaul. It is present in all kinds of software development. Upgrades and improved systems bring new features and better efficiency, but you have to invest in installing and using the new system. And the pace of development can move faster than the ability of casual users to adapt to it.

Think about what happened when we all switched to Microsoft Office 2007. There was a major overhaul to the user interface. While those of us who do document design on a daily basis may applaud how much easier it is to access text styles and keep them consistent now, it was a big adjustment, and in the short term we all lost productivity. If you were the kind of person who only opened Word a couple times a week, it may have taken a long time for the increased efficiency in the new layout and features to cancel out the lost productivity when you were first learning the program, if that ever happened at all!

For whatever reason, software markets seem to be driven by the power users, who demand more advanced features and faster update cycles.

And more casual users are often required to update their software just to stay compatible with everyone else, even if what they have serves all their needs. If you’re using an old version of Microsoft Office, you can’t open the new file formats from Office 2007 without a special plug-in. If you’re still using Internet Explorer 6, many of the Web pages you visit may not render properly—Google Docs, for example, no longer officially supports users on Internet Explorer 6. When casual users have to upgrade their technology just to interact with the rest of the world, it’s easy to see why modern luddites claim that the technology is controlling them rather than the other way around.

I’m not anti-technology of course—I wouldn’t be in this line of work if I was. I marvel at how much more I can do with a hand-held device today than you could do with the most advanced computers on the planet twenty years ago, and I’m always excited to try the next big thing in tech. But I think we need to keep thinking about the best way to reduce the friction on more casual users as we go chasing exciting new features.