Power. Interface. Choices.
On Friday I mused that Accordance's breadth and depth may make it hard for our users to communicate or even realize it's full scope. For example, our scholarly users may forget that Accordance is suitable for non-scholars, our "lay" users may not even be aware of how powerful Accordance is, etc. At the end of that post, I asked how you talk about Accordance to your friends and colleagues. I received some very interesting answers to that question in the comments on that post, and was encouraged to hear how effectively some of you are "evangelizing" others about the advantages of Accordance.
In this post, I want to talk about the way we've tried to communicate the full depth and breadth of what Accordance is.
At the top of each page of the Accordance web-site, you'll see the following tag-line: The power you need. The interface you expect. The choices you want. Here's what we mean by that three-fold description:
By the power you need, we're referring to all of Accordance's powerful features: original language searching, graphical constructs, sophisticated statistical analysis, the interactive atlas, and on and on. Basically, we mean to communicate that you're not going to find more powerful Bible software anywhere, and you'll likely never outgrow Accordance's feature-set (particularly given the rate at which we're continually expanding it!)
By the interface you expect, we mean to imply that Accordance offers the ease-of-use and elegance which Mac users especially have come to expect from the software they use. If I could only mention one thing about Accordance which sets it apart, it would be this. Other programs offer powerful features, and lots of programs offer large collections of material, but only Accordance offers all of that through a streamlined and accessible Macintosh interface.
By the choices you want, we mean to indicate that Accordance has a vast library of available resources, including Bible texts, original language texts, lexicons, dictionaries, commentaries, etc. Our goal is not merely to produce "e-books" or to offer an electronic alternative to everything available in print. Rather, we want to offer those resources which are most useful for Bible study and in depth research. In other words, we're not trying to offer every conceivable choice, but to offer those choices which you our users most want—including many which other software developers cannot offer their users.
The power you need. The interface you expect. The choices you want. That's the most concise way we've come up with to communicate what sets Accordance apart.
# posted by David Lang @ 11:32 AM
