No, it's really more complicated than "Built to appeal to decision makers, not actual users."
In terms of decision makers vs. users, the issue is that there is more than one group of users. For Blackboard, there are faculty, students, and administrators. There's a venn diagram of overlapping desires there, but there's also plenty of room for contradictory requirements.
Second is the nature of enterprise software:
--It's large, expensive to buy and expensive to maintain. So, you can't go switching it out every time a cool new product comes to market with new convenient features. You're stuck with it.
--But the vendor doesn't want to lose customers, so they figure out a way to bolt on the most popular things that come along, usually 2-3 years afterwards.
--The implementation is clunky and awkward and adds complexity for users that don't need the feature and maintenance of the system
The alternatives aren't great either: Pick an up & comer, like Canvas. It's smoother, more refined UI, less bloat, etc. People switch, because it does 80% of what they need very well, and they decide they can live without the 20% hardly anyone ever used. But over time, Canvas gets caught in the same trap. Users clamor for more features over time. They bolt on more and more, and the process repeats.
Sometimes a corporation (or university) will try to circumvent this. They go "best of breed" for all functionality
--They buy a minimalist LMS, they buy a separate system for advising & appointments etc., they buy a third system to replace the financial component handled by Blackboard Transact, etc.
--And, for a short period of time, users may be a little happier, until bolt-ons creep into each product, but maintenance & integration costs explode on the infrastructure side.
--If it gets too bad, someone in leadership will eventually say, "Why are we spending 3x as much on license maintenance with <X> full time employees to keep it all running when we can get one single system to do it all for us?
And some variation of the above cycles repeat over & over.
Administrators use it for data analysis on course usage, trend analysis in course performance, and other groups also us it for some types of financial transactions. None of it's great, most of it is minimally adequate.
In terms of decision makers vs. users, the issue is that there is more than one group of users. For Blackboard, there are faculty, students, and administrators. There's a venn diagram of overlapping desires there, but there's also plenty of room for contradictory requirements.
Second is the nature of enterprise software:
--It's large, expensive to buy and expensive to maintain. So, you can't go switching it out every time a cool new product comes to market with new convenient features. You're stuck with it.
--But the vendor doesn't want to lose customers, so they figure out a way to bolt on the most popular things that come along, usually 2-3 years afterwards.
--The implementation is clunky and awkward and adds complexity for users that don't need the feature and maintenance of the system
The alternatives aren't great either: Pick an up & comer, like Canvas. It's smoother, more refined UI, less bloat, etc. People switch, because it does 80% of what they need very well, and they decide they can live without the 20% hardly anyone ever used. But over time, Canvas gets caught in the same trap. Users clamor for more features over time. They bolt on more and more, and the process repeats.
Sometimes a corporation (or university) will try to circumvent this. They go "best of breed" for all functionality
--They buy a minimalist LMS, they buy a separate system for advising & appointments etc., they buy a third system to replace the financial component handled by Blackboard Transact, etc.
--And, for a short period of time, users may be a little happier, until bolt-ons creep into each product, but maintenance & integration costs explode on the infrastructure side.
--If it gets too bad, someone in leadership will eventually say, "Why are we spending 3x as much on license maintenance with <X> full time employees to keep it all running when we can get one single system to do it all for us?
And some variation of the above cycles repeat over & over.