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Whitespace killed an enterprise app

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Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#251

Post by enraged_camel »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #115
bachmeier wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except users lie all the time. That's the starting point for all the garbage enterprise apps I've ever used. Someone that has no clue what the users are doing makes a decision about how best to design an app that they don't even know how to test. Don't ask them how to design the app. Ask them what they do with the app, then find the best way to get them where they need to go. Then let them test the first and second…

You all them what they do, and they say things like "I open my email, ...": If you watch them you see that what they mean is (dramatised!) "I open my browser, which defaults at Google, then on the Google home page I type 'bing', click on the first search result, then go back because it wasn't Bing search but something else, then read the results and find bing search engine, follow that, login to Bing, then access the…

>>If you watch them you see that what they mean is (dramatised!)

Not necessarily dramatized... I've seen almost identical behavior in some places I've worked.

Basically: you can't take anything users say for granted. You need to actually see them work.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#252

Post by KaiserPro »

The example where the author takes a row of address data and merges the columns, with the caption: "easier to scan"

No, its really not. Anyone with a hint of dyslexia or similar will not forgive you for merging cells together.

Its just not easier to scan. What would have made it easier? first name first.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#253

Post by 13415 »

oblio wrote: post #23
maxxxxx wrote: post #9

It seems a lot of UIs these days are designed for beginners instead of people who know what they are doing. Someone’s this is OK but in a professional conetwxt it often isn’t. I can’t even imagine if IDEs like Visual Studio were designed “spacious” and “minimalistic”. It would look cute but you wouldn’t get anything done. Some things are just complex and there is no way to design that away without hurting productivit…

You can do it, but it requires tons and tons of effort. And even after all that, you can't escape the backlash. There's a great series by Jensen Harris, Office Program Manager, about how they designed the Ribbon: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2005/09/26/the-why-... (you can find the rest in his blog archives, unfortunately the images are gone) It was an incredibly complex undertaking, Microsoft did many st…

> The end result was demonstrably better for the vast majority of users (Microsoft had hard numbers to back their design decisions).

I'd rather believe their studies/methodology is flawed than that the ribbon interface makes sense. It's the most illogical and confusing interface I have ever encountered since I got my Sinclair ZX-81 as a birthday present. I still cannot use Word without googling where to find a function in the Ribbon interface, and I have no problem with any other GUI anywhere. (To be fair, I'm mostly using Linux so I'm not Word very often.)

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#254

Post by jolmg »

chrisseaton wrote: post #63
varikin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ASK! ASK! ASK! Except users lie all the time. They don't know what they need or want. People are horrible at being logical about what will actually help them. Watch them work. Watch a bunch of people work. Test and prototype changes and watch more people work. And watch them work at their desk or where ever they work.

> They don't know what they need or want. If they're so deluded about what they want what makes you think you can see through that and find a solution more clearly than they can?

More to jfengel's point, it's not just UX, you have more knowledge of what is technically possible. People will often come up with very convoluted solutions to problems because they don't have a good view of what is technically possible.

It also happens that people only take their own needs into account and not those of the other users they're indirectly interacting with via the app. They'll tell you that certain app objects should have certain constraints, that certain things should be impossible, and that such assumptions can be used as foundations for other features. Then you go visit another user and they'll tell you very plausible conditions under which those things should be possible and even required. Talking to users is good, but you also need to observe them as a group and sometimes weigh their needs against each other.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#255

Post by Bartweiss »

foobarrio wrote: post #90
varikin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ASK! ASK! ASK! Except users lie all the time. They don't know what they need or want. People are horrible at being logical about what will actually help them. Watch them work. Watch a bunch of people work. Test and prototype changes and watch more people work. And watch them work at their desk or where ever they work.

Consider their response an input signal and not necessarily instruction from them. If my little niece comes crying saying there is a monster under her bed, of course I know it's not a monster but I'll still go look. Maybe a toy is under there making a noise, or the heater pipes, or the cat is moving stuff around.

I've heard a corresponding principle in both game design and writing expressed as "When people tell you what needs fixing, they're almost always right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're almost always wrong." Feedback is great, but feature requests and proposed changes aren't actually feedback, they're new ideas.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#256

Post by IshKebab »

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…

Actually I was talking to the Bloomberg people at a conference and parts of the terminal are web based now.

Also how are monospaced fonts "the right decision"?

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#257

Post by mruts »

IshKebab wrote: post #256
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…

Actually I was talking to the Bloomberg people at a conference and parts of the terminal are web based now. Also how are monospaced fonts "the right decision"?

For the same reason that monospaced fonts are the correct choice for code: so text can line up. If you you’ve used the terminal, it displays structured information really nicely because of this.

Also in regards to the monospaced fonts, you can easily calculate how much space a block of text will take on the screen.

They do have the Bloomberg anywhere portal which is web-based, but the main app isn’t web based.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#258

Post by crooked-v »

tomaskafka wrote: post #68
fermienrico wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe how many times I've heard your story but in different companies. I feel like there is an opportunity to make a graphical user interface framework that mimics old terminals. Full screen apps that leverage use of the keyboard shortcuts or hell even a custom keyboard specifically made for industrial use. Basically a IBM 400 system but running on modern software stack. Airlines have stuck with their UI an…

No. Just mimic the speed, information density, and task-centricity.

Even a web app could do that in a pretty straightforward way with proper handling of keyboard events and tab order and a compact layout. "Press 1/2/3/4 to select a tab" is entirely doable in a web view.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#259

Post by criddell »

crowbahr wrote: post #250
criddell wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better for them, not necessarily for you. Reddit wants lots of growth (they are taking new money now I think) and that means lots of new users that don't know the old UI. The new one is designed with those users in mind, not ones that know the site inside and out already.

It's sanding down a barrier to entry that was already fairly low, in my opinion. They haven't really made it much lower either. Integrating RES into the main site would've been most of what they needed to get going...

They aren't going to care about what anybody on HN has to say about it because we aren't the audience they are after.

They need hundreds of millions of new users and those have to come from Facebook and probably on mobile.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#260

Post by mruts »

twic wrote: post #217
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.

I worked for a company that rhymes with “potus” did you work for the company that rhymed with “brighthouse”?

Man those guys had an ugly app.

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