Jonny Engelberg
Research Analyst,
University of Maryland
But I Liked the Old One Better: Technical Success without Human Success, and How to Bridge the Gap
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | 2:00PM–2:40PM ET
Session Type:
Breakout Session
Delivery Format:
Live Session
What do you do when a new system technically works, but doesn’t work for users? What factors might shape user experiences beyond the system itself? In this session, we share our story of an enormous technical accomplishment: a large-scale enterprise-level project that has replaced the functionality of several disparate outdated systems. Yet a recent campus-wide survey regarding our enterprise resource planning systems showed a disconnect between this success and user perceptions. We use our findings as a launching pad to discuss how the human context of system integration influences their experiences of enterprise tools. For example, most of these systems serve “common, but rare” tasks. These are tasks everyone has to do that occur so infrequently no one remembers how to do them, resulting in negative experiences with the system. Interactions between system longevity and an employees’ own tenure at the institution may have further implications for how users receive new systems. Join us as we navigate these topics and other tricky contextual elements that might influence perceptions of system efficacy.
