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Whitespace killed an enterprise app

uxdesign.cc

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Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#311

Post by taude »

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 was going to post about Bloomberg Terminals, but figured since I'm late to the story, someone else already did. Yeup.

It's funny how little credit we give to business users these days, and how much marketing UX there can be.

There was a time when business students attending college and their crufty professors could manage using email by telneting into the mainframe to use Pine. And the technology was a wonderment to them.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#312

Post by manyxcxi »

devonkim wrote: post #127
manyxcxi wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Watch them work. This x1000! I took on a freelance project for a heavy machinery hauling company. They were a year into transitioning away from some customized off the shelf Enterprise scheduling and dispatch system into some custom built software by an “Enterprise” consulting company. They were originally bringing me in to audit what the team that was building it but that pretty much changed on the day I submitted…

You did the work of a product manager, business analyst, and engineer all in one. This is what consulting is supposed to be but most companies are merely hiring contractors and are uninterested in any challenges to their requirements (that were never derived from the real world in any way, just an ivory tower of management / conceptual consultants). So you also had a good client as well that respected your proposal a…

> you also had a good client

I had a fantastic client. I don’t know if it’s because the rigging industry is full of “holy sh, we gotta think on our feet” situations or what, but for a seemingly “low tech” client they grasped on to an iterative and flexible approach so much better than most clients I’ve ever had from the tech industry.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#313

Post by godelski »

I think another lesson to learn is "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". I think we all have used apps where we got used to one thing and then there's a UI design that changes everything.

As an example that really has no major impact (but I think illustrates subtle changes), I got mad with the Android 9 update. The number one thing I was mad about was the clock placement. Every previous generation it had been placed in the upper right. Since 9 it moved to the top left (same as iPhones). Problem being that Android literally trained the userbase to look in a specific area for that feature and then moved it. Sure, I know where to look now, but I still frequently look at the top right first.

Feature changes like this I don't understand. I can't understand how it would be a significant factor in converting users (which in this case the platform had majority market share) and also results in confusing (rightly so) the existing userbase.

Not working in UI I see them a lot like QC (but with more work to do). If everything is working perfectly QC should have nothing to do. Just like if your UI is good then it shouldn't be changed. I don't understand this "need" to always change things. Sure, there are legit reasons to do so (just like QC NEEDS to exist (for the love of god don't get rid of QC)), but I see a lot of changes that happen that don't make things easier and appear (from the user side) to just be change for the sake of change.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#314

Post by holografix »

varikin wrote: post #27
duxup wrote: post #8

One 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.

Couldn’t agree more! Often the users look at you as “the expert” as if you could tell them how to do their job and show up basically with a ready app.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#315

Post by godelski »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #106
SlightRespect wrote: post #64

Earlier 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.

Yes exactly. CL is probably my favorite website on the internet, for the sheer reason that they have virtually not changed at all since they first launched over 10 years ago. It's fairly incredible. I can't think of another website that has done that.

> I can't think of another website that has done that.

https://news.ycombinator.com

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#316

Post by ben-schaaf »

varikin wrote: post #27
duxup wrote: post #8

One 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.

Its not always an option, but another alternative to asking and observing is becoming. If you yourself (or someone on your team) have previously been or are currently a user then you can usually answer a lot of the questions yourself with much less of a bias and maybe find solutions you wouldn't be able to by just asking and observing.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#317

Post by lioeters »

kbenson wrote: post #291
andrepd wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably boggles the mind of people like us, used to being power command-line users and automating our boring tasks with powerful tools, to hear stories like this.

With the prevalence of office jobs that use computers, being a developer is sort of like being an engineer in the 1960's or before but having the ability to whip up designs for simple mechanical devices that you can build for very low time and money cost, and replicate for free. It's like being the inventor of the slap-chop except that it costs so little to get items out there, that people often just do it for free.…

I like your description, it's one of things I love about software, how malleable it is for quickly building "devices", tools for my own use or a potentially large number of users.

About the last point you made, how it would be great if hardware/mechanical devices could be made more like software - a few years ago I heard about "micro factories" (forgot the exact term): 3D printers for small(er) scale manufacturing. It seemed promising that soon we could be writing software to manufacture devices/products at home, in a garage, local maker "lab". If you thought of an easier mechanism to mince garlic, you could whip up a prototype in a code editor and "print out" a working prototype (or production-level device)..

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#318

Post by godelski »

folkrav wrote: post #135
lessclue wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually old.reddit.com but they probably have some sort of a wildcard rule.

This is probably it : any two letter combination seems to work.

Testing it out I found something interesting. You can put in subreddit.reddit.com and it redirects to reddit.com/r/subreddit. But any 2 char prefix works sends to old.reddit.com (a.reddit.com -> reddit.com/r/a)

e.g. hackernews.reddit.com -> reddit.com/r/hackernews

Why does this subreddit exist?

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#319

Post by shawnz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #288
shawnz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The computer is there to automate repetitive tasks, not create virtual busywork. The GUI eliminated the busy work of setting up your environment to make your workflows easy. It instead provides an environment where a wide variety of workflows are easy by default, although maybe not as easy as they could be with specific configuration like setting up customized keybindings, etc.

Easy but time consuming. I.e. not ergonomic. Also point&click UIs tend to sacrifice composability, whereas keyboard-driven interfaces tend to allow to chain operations and modifiers in a way that makes it ergonomically cover much larger space of possible workflows.

> Easy but time consuming

But learning is time consuming, too. Keyboard-driven interfaces can be more efficient but they are not discoverable. Maybe keyboard-driven interfaces make sense for the domain specific tasks that you do every day, but would you want a keyboard-driven interface for every random website you come across?

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#320

Post by papa_bear »

dalyons wrote: post #118
SlightRespect wrote: post #64

Earlier 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.

I think craigslist survives _despite_ its ugly UI just because of market lock-in/inertia. the ui is awful from a utility/ux, pov - it’s limited and hard to shop/browse with.

Definitely - there used to be a bunch of sites that scraped craigslist and put their listings into more browse-able formats (e.g. Padmapper), but once they got too popular, CL started sending C&Ds and filing lawsuits.
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