Everybody says the designer should learn the user's workflow. But for complex workflows the designer is not going to learn everything they need to know. I think the other way around is better: let the users tweak the design. UX isn't that hard to learn or understand, especially for industrial systems where aesthetics are not important.
Whitespace killed an enterprise app
271–280 of 445 posts
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Craigslist is _the_ case study on how an ugly UI can survive over a long timeline. There are many techies and UI designers that are just disgusted at the UI of craigslist. For some, aesthetic is more important than usability. Luckily, for most, it's not.
Not to forget amazon.com. I am actually in awe of their boldness in completely ignoring UI design trends.
Amazon has purposefully broken their search and navigation, but probably in an anti-consumer metric-driven way instead of designer-driven.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
CL is only ten years old? I always figured it was from the 90s — maybe a bias originating from the design.
It's over 20 years old, it launched in 1996. Time flies.
oh wow, I stand corrected. I always thought it was 10 years old because I discovered it around 2008. Sheesh.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#274Hallelujah. 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…
God yes, the older reddit interface was so much better. I don't give a shit how pretty the UI is.
The old mobile reddit site [0] is _amazing_! No whitespace, no padding!
[0] The one which you can still reach by adding '.compact' to any reddit url
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#275>a well-intentioned UX Designer at a large high-tech company who was given a new project: Redesign an internal control panel that was ugly [...] It lasted one month before the company was forced to retire it. Users absolutely hated the new system. Sure, the old system was ugly, but it had everything they needed, right at their fingertips! Their jobs were incredibly fast paced—they worked in a tech support call center…
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…
Those old green screen apps (CICs etc) supported enormous key stroke rates all right, with nary a mouse in sight.
But productivity was not as high as a rosy colored view of the past might suggest.
Operators had to be highly skilled. Entering a record for the East coast sales team would require remembering the code ESALES03. There were no helpful UI affordances of the modern age, e.g. fuzzy or free form searching.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#276The typical person making a purchase decision doesn't know what the app does in any detail. So if he sees less information on screen he thinks it's easier to use, as compared to more information on screen. Of course the opposite is normally true, which is where the trouble starts. It also looks similar to simple consumer apps that the decision-maker is used to. Finally the UX designer says magic words like "clean" and "simple" and "focused" and "beautiful" and the sale is made.
The lesson here is to find way to counteract this. User engagement metrics would be the last line of defense. Earlier than that maybe small focus groups.
But something is already lost by the time we got here - we're not on the same page wrt what is important and what are the criteria. I'm open to suggestions here.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#277One point: >Are there things my users really don’t need to see right now? If you don’t know, ask! ASK! ASK! ASK! For the love of god please ask your users. I worked for a company with a big clunky enterprise app. It got redesigned numerous times and rolled out with big fanfare. Nobody who used for any significant amount of time was involved in any of the redesigns. It was horrible every time with numerous changes jus…
> 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.
Another thing is that suggestions from users often suffer from the "XY problem" issue. So even when a user has a ridiculous suggestion or request, there might be a legitimate issue behind it.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#278One point: >Are there things my users really don’t need to see right now? If you don’t know, ask! ASK! ASK! ASK! For the love of god please ask your users. I worked for a company with a big clunky enterprise app. It got redesigned numerous times and rolled out with big fanfare. Nobody who used for any significant amount of time was involved in any of the redesigns. It was horrible every time with numerous changes jus…
We have this issue now. Inevitably when the actual users of the app report issues with this or that, the answer from the dev team is almost always, "Works as designed". Yes, we know, THE DESIGN IS BROKEN . And then, nothing. New features come out though, most of which aren't needed or deprecate features that we actually like. So I'm sure some Project Manager is being paid handsomely.
Yup, and this is the primary reason for why I avoid commercial products (or, even worse, services) like the plague.
When shit's broken I want to at least be able to go in there and fix it myself, not email some support vendor who's just going to ignore it.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes, this is from experience of watching users. I've often had to bite my tongue. Sometimes one learns something clever.
Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app
#280> Look at Material’s Updates
No! If you're thinking about your enterprise application like an android app then you're starting in the wrong place.