Whitespace killed an enterprise app • Hacker News Board

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#211

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #148

mruts wrote: post #25

A great example of a really nice information dense app is the Bloomberg terminal. Maybe it’s ugly (a lot of people say this, but I personally don’t think so), but all the right design choices have been made. High Contrast, monospaced fonts, extensive keybindings, absolutely no wasted space. And, most essential, it’s not a web app. I used to work at a portfolio analytics company who’s explicit goal was: to have all of…

I liked the bloomberg style so much I ripped the fonts out of some Bloomberg software and use them as my terminal font :). It's an attractive font.

[deleted]

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#212

Post by Jtsummers » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

tabtab wrote: post #152

arkitaip wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure the lesson here in going back to CLI. What designers need to do is to conduct research - interviews, observational studies, etc - to understand how and why people use their software and then create design alternatives.

Ignoring a learning curve for the sake of argument, the most effective UI's tend to be command-oriented. If you memorize the abbreviated commands, you don't have to traverse menu trees. Command-line interfaces can still have menus for newbies. For example, pressing Enter or giving the command "m" or the fuller "menu" at the command prompt may give a menu similar to: 1 - Search for employees (SE) 2 - New hire (NH) 3 -…

Many emacs modes use something akin to this (see magit as a stellar example). This makes learning it relatively easy (it's discoverable), but becoming a power user is still possible.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#213

Post by alehul » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

dagoat wrote: post #201

folkrav wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this but I find Google Play Music to be way, way worse.

So because Google Play Music is worse at X, that means Spotify's X can't be bad? Or are you saying the bar is: "as long as there's something worse"

> So because Google Play Music is worse at X, that means Spotify's X can't be bad?

It could be that, in most cases, we only think of the options as ones that we've been introduced to.

We're way too busy with daily life to really think in-depth about everything in hypothetical possibilities, such as "here's a way in which a music app that doesn't exist could do it better." Instead, (unless we're very passionate about music), we tend to only think about the options that have been presented to us.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#214

Post by Shivetya » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

Hallelujah. It's not just enterprise apps, either. I've seen more than a few consumer app redesigns that just seemed to tack on the "clean", "minimalist", "whitespace" ethos, without really having a clue of an understanding of how users actually used the product. I think this is a big factor in what killed slashdot. They did a big redesign years back that added a lot of whitespace but actually made it incredibly diff…

I have seen it in ill fated attempts to replace POS systems that were old green screen types to warehousing stocking tools using the same all with new pretty GUI or web page interfaces. Looking slick is great if customer facing but down in the trenches its all about familiarity, speed, and stability.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#215

Post by mattkevan » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

tabtab wrote: post #188

erikpukinskis wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can’t just ask a user “how could this screen work better” Why would you ask that anyway? You've already assumed the problem and solution at that point. You ask how it's going, very generally and let the conversation lead you to their pain points. You don't ask about the UI, which they are not an authority on. You ask about their subjective experience, which they are.

The best approach is to watch them do their work and ask a lot of questions. For example, "Why did you have to leave this screen to go find X?"

'Why?' is a very powerful question.

A few months ago I heard a talk by the chief product manager at a photo album printing company where he talked about an in-depth series of customer interviews they'd recently conducted.

His advice was to keep asking why until you get to the root of why someone did something. However, if the answer you reach 'Because I don't want to die alone', then you've gone too far...

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#216

Post by crooked-v » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #190

redwall_hp wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how I feel about computing in general. GUIs in general were a mistake. Vim is fucking awesome, and there's no replacing a shell and the myriad CLI utilities you have at your disposal. The computer is there to automate repetitive tasks, not create virtual busywork. GUIs generally represent the sacrifice of power and automation for approachability by the lowest common denominator.

I have also thought this through to the following logical conclusion: Imagine computer users being fluent in SQL and everyone sharing one giant database. Let’s check Twitter... select message, username from TWEETS order by date desc limit 10 Slightly more realistic is the “semantic web” concept.

The trend of GraphQL in JS-land is helping move a little bit towards this, since it's a strong reason to have row-level user authentication and access control so that queries can live in the frontend.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#217

Post by twic » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #25

A great example of a really nice information dense app is the Bloomberg terminal. Maybe it’s ugly (a lot of people say this, but I personally don’t think so), but all the right design choices have been made. High Contrast, monospaced fonts, extensive keybindings, absolutely no wasted space. And, most essential, it’s not a web app. I used to work at a portfolio analytics company who’s explicit goal was: to have all of…

> I used to work at a portfolio analytics company who’s explicit goal was: to have all of Wall St use Bloomberg on one screen, and our product on the other.

Me too! I wonder if it was the same company?

> Our app was probably the anti-thesis to the Bloomberg Terminal in almost everyway: “modern” design, tons of white space

It was not.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#218

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #19

danielvaughn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God yes, the older reddit interface was so much better. I don't give a shit how pretty the UI is.

I use ud.reddit.com Although anytime I mention this I fear they'll take it away...

[deleted]

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#219

Post by soneca » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

I am building an enterprise-y software (a 1:1 meeting app[0]) and, not being a designer or UX expert, I am taking some chances with the design.

I am using a dark background and I am aiming for a design heuristic where everything of common use is reachable with scroll and 1 click. It becomes a long page the more meetings and notes you had. This does not leave much space for white space.

I am also being bold on the use of colors to differentiate where the user is while among all that scrolling.

I am not sure I am right in any of my choices, but this article makes me think I am on the right path. Even if we have different instances on scrolling

[0] https://www.oneonemeeting.com

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#220

Post by Cenk » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

>Consider using monospaced numbers when comparing digits between rows matters.

For the love of god don’t only consider it, actually use tabular numbers in any context where the number is not part of a sentence or something similar.