Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Enterprise Software Sucks

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 570 posts

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#461

Post by avip »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #406
cnst wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to be clear, this has nothing to do with "classroom". The problem is people design these things without any sort of actual testing in actual conditions where the software is supposed to be used. Displaying 5 results per page is a bug, not a feature. Having restrictions on filetypes is a bug, not a feature. The same could go on to the rest of their "features". (My biggest pet peeve is date formatting — just give…

> just give me ISO8601 dates, please; HackerNews, you, too! Strongly seconding. It's an annoying UX antipattern, especially as it loses precision over time ("28 minutes ago" is fine, but "yesterday" or "5 days ago" or - even worse - "2 years ago" is not; having the date specified to hours or minutes is actually useful, especially in context of a site with international audience). Doubly so on HN, which doesn't even b…

I have one word to tell you: timezone

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#462

Post by yellowapple »

nvarsj wrote: post #437
scarface74 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never had any trouble with typing on a touch screen just as fast as my old Blackberry. Especially if you have autocorrect.

This does not compute. I am a fast typer on all mediums, but a touch screen is just so slow compared to physical. I think I got around 80 wpm on my blackberry, there is no way I could do that on a touch screen. And iPhone autocorrect is terrible with any sort of tech jargon - frequently causing manual corrections.

I've found that haptic feedback helps. My first smartphone was a handmedown first-gen iPhone, so I didn't really understand the point of haptic feedback because I wasn't exposed to it, but upon switching to a Galaxy SII and feeling a tactile response with each press I've yet to look back.

Every time haptic feedback turns off for "power saving" when I'm running low on battery, I immediately wonder how anyone ever manages to type anything at all without mucking things up all the time.

I'd still prefer a physical keyboard, though.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#463

Post by chrisseaton »

avip wrote: post #461
TeMPOraL wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just give me ISO8601 dates, please; HackerNews, you, too! Strongly seconding. It's an annoying UX antipattern, especially as it loses precision over time ("28 minutes ago" is fine, but "yesterday" or "5 days ago" or - even worse - "2 years ago" is not; having the date specified to hours or minutes is actually useful, especially in context of a site with international audience). Doubly so on HN, which doesn't even b…

I have one word to tell you: timezone

What about them? ISO8601 supports time zones.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#464

Post by jackvalentine »

Honestly one of the factors leading to my burnout and depression was being required to be 'the face of' and promote the use of a piece of enterprise software that just confounded your expectations as a user at every turn.

I tried my best, I went to conferences and met the woman charged with modernising the UI and submitted the extensive feedback she asked for. She left the company 3 months later.

Training sessions were a constant flow of 'yeah that is a bit weird, but that's how it works!'.

I submitted via the vendor's service portal enhancement requests for everything that came up. Two years later they were all closed.

I knew it was hopeless, but I had to try. I wish I'd just refused and found somewhere else to work.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#465

Post by scarface74 »

amaccuish wrote: post #449
mbreese wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't surprise me if the BB push notifications worked over pager frequencies. I can't find anything online about how they actually worked, but the original two-way communications device from RIM was called the "Inter@ctive Pager"[0]. If I were to guess, I'd say it is possible the push notification went over a pager frequency and included a snippet of the message. The device would then be able to request the ful…

So the first ones used pager networks, the next generation used cellular. The push service was quite good IMHO. Every carrier that supported BlackBerry Internet Service had a leased line or VPN to the RIM NOCs. The phones would connect to BIS servers at the carrier which then communicated over these backhauls to RIM. Because it was all so deeply integrated in the carriers network (I believe the BIS servers acted as a…

This sounds worse than modern ActiveSync - which Apple introduces support for in 2010 (2009?). You also didn’t have to send all of your email through BlackBerry’s servers.

With ActiveSync, my email will usually reach my phone/cellular watch/iPad before it reaches my computer.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#466

Post by scarface74 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #402
shinjitsu wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having restrictions on filetypes is a bug, not a feature. It should be - but for many school IT security types it really is a feature to limit file types

Security: it seems to me that in the wild, 40% of it is security theater, another 40% exists primarily to ruin your mood and control you the user, and remaining 20% is actually around the right trade-off between utility and safety.

I agree that it is mostly theatre. I understand not allowing an exe, but if you have to download the file and rename it, how much of that would be unintentional?

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#467

Post by scarface74 »

x0x0 wrote: post #440
andrei_says_ wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a corporate environment and I also write software -- both external and internal tools. My intolerance to unnecessary pain is one of the main driving forces in creating software-based tools. The amount of pain inflicted on employees by enterprise solutions of various kinds is immeasurable. As a developer, I squirm witnessing so much unnecessary work and discomfort associated with simple tasks. For example, e…

I agree with everything you say, except the last bit. You can't believe people aren't aware that concur is a pita and hence it reduces expense valid expense submission...

Concur, especially on mobile is pretty good. It’s a lot better than every single project manager tool that I have ever used.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#468

Post by scarface74 »

Torwald wrote: post #376
dividido wrote: post #367

I write enterprise software for fortune 100 companies. If I put myself in the user’s shoes and had an alternative, I’d most likely uninstall what we built and jump ship. But they can’t. It’s an internal app and the user is forced to use it. I try and fight for what’s right but if I had a dollar everytime I heard “ we aren’t google/amazon” , “only xx people will use it”, “we are just doing this to get off the old tech…

> UX isn’t valued Good UX drives costs down for training and draining of human capital. That should be the pitch. Next question, who in the fortune 100 should hear that pitch?

Once people become accustom to using a piece of software, it doesn’t matter. I witnessed this first hand, we wrote software for field service techs running on old Windows CE based ruggedized devices. The techs could navigate through the Windows with the keyboard, 5 deep without waiting on the screens to catch up.

Re: Why Enterprise Software Sucks

#469

Post by scarface74 »

wayoutthere wrote: post #386
bryanmgreen wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is building a B2B SAAS company and made the decision to not focus on large-enterprise, I think you're both right. At the end of the day, it's just plain hard to create a clean effective product that can be used by 5,000+ person organizations. Regardless of use-case, boatloads of data will be collected in large-enterprise software and it has to be transferred and presented to many end-users in a clear w…

I think a lot of SaaS companies end up failing fast when they focus on the enterprise. The sales cycle is longer, and having a massive client can end up putting their individual needs over features that would make the product more attractive to the market as a whole. SaaS makes the most money when users can self-service in large numbers at relatively low transaction costs, which typically means SMB should be your fir…

When you go over after whales, they can fund your business without having to go after VC funding and you can milk them to go after smaller clients.
Post reply on HN