What Users Care About
Simply put, users want what they want—when they want it. Ask a worker what he or she likes best about the MFP and the answer will be as varied as the kind of work being done. For example:
“My MFP lets me scan to all three destinations I need with one push of a button.”
“It remembers my jobs so I don’t have to reprogram them.”
“If I’m on the road, my MFP automatically sends my faxes to my e-mail box.”
“When there’s a paper jam, the control panel shows a picture of where it is how to fix it.”
“I don’t have to order toner. The copier keeps track of it for me and automatically orders when we’re running low.”
- Is the MFP easy to use, so workers don’t waste time trying to figure out how to program their jobs?
- What about the processes for changing toner, and paper, and for clearing paper jams? If a paper drawer has to be adjusted, can a typical user figure out how to do it correctly?
- Can users check the status of toner and paper from their desks before sending a large print job?
These considerations can directly affect a worker’s productivity. Because of that, a copier or MFP that’s difficult to use probably won’t be used to its full potential. Ease of use is another factor rated by BLI Lab and Field Test Reports, with in-depth analysis of each tested product’s strengths and weaknesses, giving readers a good idea of how easy it is to use in a range of areas (such as control panel ease of use, ease and cleanliness of toner changing, etc.). Again, ask your dealer for the report or subscribe to bliQ.
Anyone who prints or copies confidential documents will also want the latest security features. If they send a confidential job to the workgroup MFP, they don’t have to sprint to the device (or worse, go look for the document only to find someone has already walked away with it.) Instead, they can simply enter a code to release the job at their convenience.
Saving Time & Reducing Frustration
Time is another critical consideration, since a busy worker’s time is always at a premium. Does the MFP allow them to meet their deadlines, or are they left frustrated, without their job five minutes before the meeting because the copier is jammed or the toner ran out?
Similarly, a copier, printer or MFP that requires users to spend a lot of time replacing or changing out paper supplies, toner or other consumables drags down productivity. Output quality can also be an issue, if users think the print or copy quality isn’t good.
An office that creates a lot of presentations with photographs, for example, will need an MFP that produces output with a good range of halftones and that does not speckle, stair-step or otherwise distort complex images. Image quality ratings are also offered in detail in BLI Lab Test Reports.
Of course, functionality is also a key issue for any workgroup. An art director will probably be unimpressed by a printer or copier that doesn’t allow advanced editing or color-matching capabilities, while a legal secretary will want a simple scan solution that includes Bates stamping and optical character recognition, allowing for easy searches of large documents for key phrases, names, dates or character strings.
The key is to find a copier, printer or MFP with the right capabilities needed, which is also easy to use and reliable.