Google assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri – all these platforms designed to make our lives easier might be reaching a stage, for some, where they are achieving the reverse. Many people, especially Boomers and Generation X (latterly those born between 1965 and 1981) are starting to push back against the speed of change, which many of them see as unnecessary and for its own sake – or perhaps they feel it is for the sake of technology firms’ profits across the globe.

And it’s not only the tech giants such as Amazon and Apple automating everything. Nowadays you need an app to park your car, order a pizza or put some credit onto a home gas or electricity meter. As a result, a new form of help is starting to appear within software packages, known as a digital adoption platform, or DAP.

If you want to play, you’ve got to pay!

DAPs are fast becoming a necessity, because technology is taking over traditional or ‘analogue’ practices, such as using cash to pay for groceries. Instead, customers are using Google Pay, Apple Watch or even Bitcoin when they go shopping! Consequently, some people are complaining that life is becoming too complex; a phone with a fully charged battery is required to do anything from taking a flight to buying a bus ticket.

It’s true to say that when technology works as seamlessly as it is designed to do, it can be very much less time consuming and arduous than using ‘the old ways’ of achieving things. Problems only usually happen when things go wrong with tech, then people are left high and dry with no alternatives.

For example, many Boomers and Gen X people still carry printed road maps in their vehicles in case anything goes astray with their Satellite Navigation Systems, or if their phone battery runs flat. The number of people using cash is reducing year on year, but many cautious individuals still carry enough greenbacks to buy gas or basic groceries if payment processing systems fail.

Back in 2020, a major survey by the Edelman Trust found that 60% of people surveyed felt that the general pace of tech change was too fast, even when responses were plotted against an average of age groups.

Running on empty…

However, many people’s objections to having technology forced upon them are soon forgotten when those people learn to use it to their best advantage. Leaving aside the risk of server outages, power cuts and flat batteries, when people become comfortable with tech, and it achieves what they want it to achieve, their world becomes a happier place.

So, by logical extension, if tech firms can ensure that people find it easier to master and control the platforms they’re using, then people’s objections are more likely to disappear. This is where the DAP becomes essential; as it’s a virtual ‘teaching assistant’ that acts as a friendly, knowledgeable mentor for users of technology who are struggling to cope with updates or new platforms.

Crucially, the DAP uses artificial intelligence (AI) to run alongside the primary software to which it’s assigned. It acts as a teaching layer of architecture, learning the individual workflow style of the person that is logged onto their DAP account. When a person opens a software package for the very first time, on registering their details, the DAP will begin to record their activities from the outset. The AI learns the person’s workflow habits, where they make common mistakes etc. – but it’s on an individual level – so as the person learns to use software, the DAP offers fewer tooltips about commonly visited pages, instead offering help whenever the user enters unfamiliar screens or processes.

Not only can DAPs be useful for home users of shopping apps and utilities, but also in commercial situations where large companies might have hundreds of employee licenses for SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms. If all the workforce, say of an insurance company call center, were making mistakes in the same screens within similar workflow scenarios, clearly there’s something wrong with the software’s UX (user experience), not the abilities of its operators.

Blackberry picking

In this way, management can feedback to software designers where workflow processes are failing, enabling smoother employee engagement and improved UIs (user interfaces) and UX interactions.

Boomers and those who struggle with tech and the ever-changing pace of the world, might console themselves with the news that rapid change no longer necessarily means fighting to keep up. Previously to home computers and smartphones, even before the ‘Blackberry’ device was invented, the pace of change was slow. If things didn’t work, people put up with it, but became used to those problems. Then, modern tech arrived, and many people were getting left behind with the pace of change. But now, with DAPs set to become a standard feature of most software and apps on the market, updates and new innovations will be so much easier to cope with; in fact, they might go almost unnoticed.

DAPs can bring the utility of technology without the tears, and that has to be great news for even the most die-hard of techno avoiders.