Your points were well-made in this article. Workflow is one of the primary areas I discuss with people trying to decide on Bible software. In my opinion, Accordance has the best blend of ease of use and workflow customization. Keep up the good work, and I'm excited to see what you have planned for future versions.

You'll be pleased to know that upcoming webinars will include some that are task-oriented: how to do a word study, how to write a sermon, how to compose a presentation and how write a research paper in biblical studies.

We started off with webinars that covered the basics bacause of all the new features in Accordance 8. Eventually, this will give us a pool of resource materials for new users.

So, stayed tuned..., help with tasks is on the way!

Blessings,

Dr. J

In my discussions with many bible software users and programmers over the years, I have found just as many different workflows. Most new users that have never really studied the Bible in depth are completely lost. Most that were seminary trained using books use a similar system with electronic texts regardless of the software. A power user is someone that understands how they want to study the bible and how to make the software work to their benefit. That should be the goal of training, albeit challenging given the different levels of skill in each software's customer base.

I think some software companies recognize that their potential market includes many people that are new to bible study, not just bible study software. Or, they are designing software for a targeted market that are trained to study a certain way and design their software accordingly.

The challenge is to train users that need to learn how to study the bible and not just how to use the specific software to study the bible. The danger is making it seem easy to translate the original languages, when it is not; or to overwhelm the user with too much information, at least too soon in their study of the text. Demonstrating how much information a particular software product can search and obtain and how quickly is not necessarily bible study, but it makes for good marketing. Finding information specific to a particular stage of study should be the goal. This takes knowing what you are looking for and how to get it from the software.

To be specific:

BibleWorks Study Guides are all task oriented and not a tutorial on just how to use their software. Their vision of workflow is probably more incorporated into the design of their product than most, and is in line with their vision of their market.

Logos has tutorial that show both how to use the software as well as workflow. While they provide the home page for beginning users and market it as in-depth bible study, the true workflow design is in the passage guide and possibly their study templates currently in beta.

Regarding these two products, I do not think they lock you into a workflow, even though they may suggest starting points and steps for study in their design.

Accordance tutorials are mostly how to use the program. Fortunately your blog expands this knowledge into incorporating it into a workflow. Accordance is well designed and efficient, once you get under the hood. Making the webinars and training videos available is a great step. The resource "Beginning in Mark" is a great tutorial combining both why and how to. Keep up the work in this area. If your customers get more out of God's Word using your software, then you have accomplished your goal.