Take a good look around. If you are like most people, you are surrounded by vast quantities of manufactured items. At home, you probably have a television or two, a DVD player, modern kitchen appliances, and a computer. At work you may have a laptop, mobile phone, PDA, and various office machines. These items in general are intended to make our lives easier, more enjoyable, but most importantly they were created with the intent of saving us time. But wait – if these devices are so great, why is it then that these same devices, whose intent was to ‘make our lives easier’, require ‘power users’, or 50 page manuals, or have features that never get used? Why is it then that these wonderful items, which have been designed with the intent of reducing stress, only add it to it? Two words – bad design.

But, it doesn’t need to be this way. The world is filled with small examples of good design that make important differences in our lives. Just look around – your faucet is a standard design, you know where the hot and cold taps, your doors are designed so you know whether to push or pull just by looking at it, even the pen you write with may be designed so that it subtly tells you how to hold it so it writes properly. If properly done none of these require labels or instructions. There is no need to put an ‘H’ or a ‘C’ on the taps, or the words ‘PULL’ and ‘PULL’ on the doors. Each detail of the design was carefully considered by some designer who thought out the use of the device, how it could be misused or abused, and how he perceived the public wanted it to function.  They were designed with specific needs in mind and, by being detailed oriented in the operation of these products designers made life easier.

Technology too offers us the potential of making life easier and more enjoyable as well. Moreover, with every new advancement in technology we have increased benefits. Faster machines, feature rich software, better graphics. Yet at the same time, these advancements add complexities and increase our frustration. Just look at the new Windows VISTA vs. the ‘old’ Windows XP. While trying to make things easier for us, it in fact makes it more difficult. For example in the area of wireless network access XP allowed you access to its management related functions right from the system tray including the ability to repair a wireless network. While VISTA allows the same convenience, the wizard that launches just falls short of a novel complicating what essentially used to be a simple process.

What is even more frustrating is having to shift gears at your place of business because of new technology trends, poorly planned networks, or defectively designed software applications. As with the design of everyday products, your business needs to have well thought out technology solutions designed, and tailored to, the way you run your business. Even off the shelf products ‘designed specifically’ for your type of business sometimes fall short of the mark because you may not run your business the same as your competitor. Then again, what good is buying an off the shelf solution that a hardware store would buy when you run an insurance company?

In order to remain competitive businesses need solutions that are designed in line with way they run their day-to-day operations. It’s what we believe at Real Solutions Inc. and it’s what’s helped us help our clients remain profitable. Real Solutions was founded with the idea that in order to help businesses be successful understanding their business processes is essential. That is why our design approach is simple; provide business solutions in line with our client’s business.

If you'd like information on how Real Solutions and the real solutions way ^tm can benefit your company please visit us at http://www.rsolutionsinc.com or contact us at (706)429-0085, or email us at info@rsolutionsinc.com.