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Whitespace killed an enterprise app

uxdesign.cc

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Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#51

Post by Tepix »

fermienrico wrote: post #2

Am I the only one like dense information? There is judicious use of whitespace (Swiss layout, Brockmann et. al) and then there is the whole material UX enchilada. I prefer Foobar2000 over Apple Music. Give me dense, logical and flat layout over 50 page long hierarchical layout full of whitespace. Whitespace is tiring when used extensively.

The learning curve is much steeper with a dense interface. So if you only use a software occasionally you may be better off with a friendly looking interface that hides stuff from you unless you need it.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#52

Post by bachmeier »

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.

> 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 and third versions, and listen to their feedback without an assumption that "they just don't understand my genius".

It's important to distinguish between casual social media app users and power users spending hours of their day using an app to get their work done.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#53

Post by vermooten »

I worked at a company whose name begins with K ... exactly this happened. The 'old' UI was an ASP nightmare from the early 2000s but it contained all that the users loved. The new thing never took off, despite the CTO putting his job on the line for it.

Another company had a green-screen nightmare from the 1980s replaced by some mouse-driven mofre modern UI - ditto. The users could easily naviate with arrow keys, tabs, function keys. It was FAST. The new UI, and it's even newer HTML replacement, both needed the mouse.

Hard to sell and 2002 nightmare or a green-screen to a prospective client - but they LUURRRRVE a cool modern Angular UI, but the people who buy thing thing aren't the ones who have to use it.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#54

Post by tom_ »

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.

You can probably find a better term for this phenomenon than "lie", which implies a degree of active intent to deceive.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#55

Post by lesss365 »

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…

What made you switch to development?

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#57

Post by PakG1 »

I'll forever be scarred by a web app I made to make the workflow in a mainframe terminal obsolete. Was so proud of what I'd done and all the theoretical productivity I had enabled (hey, I calculated the numbers, and the manager signed off on it!).

But my only lasting memory of that app is that it probably didn't increase productivity as much as I thought it did when I looked at how they used it day to day, and only succeeded in giving them carpal tunnel syndrome due to all the extra mouse-clicking. The final conversation I had with those users is how their wrists were starting to hurt so much. But hey, I was moving on to another project. Hey, sorry to hear, here are some exercises for your wrists, see ya. Oh, by the way, did you ever try Powerball? Supposed to do wonders to make your wrists stronger.

I try not to be so narrow-minded about app design after that. Pretty does not necessarily equal functional, useful, or value-adding.

edit: In retrospect, those users grocked that terminal interface with all their key shortcuts the way a seasoned developer or sysadmin would grock emacs. Imagine forcing such a guy to use point and click instead for everything. You'd have a riot. I can't believe I didn't see it at the time. Young and naive, and now also regretful for all those people's wrists.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#58

Post by reaperducer »

carlmr wrote: post #29

>Use color deliberately. And think of the color blind. Especially dark red shouldn't be the only way this information is highlighted. 8% of men are the kind of red-green colorblind, where dark red and black is not easily distinguishable. If 8% of men don't see your error notifications, maybe that shouldn't be the only kind of highlighting (or choose a color that is less likely to affect so many people, like orange).…

>Use color deliberately.

And think of the color blind. Especially dark red shouldn't be the only way this information is highlighted. 8% of men are the kind of red-green colorblind, where dark red and black is not easily distinguishable.

The example given in TFA is bad. Red should never be the sole indicator of an error. As you pointed out, color blindness is a thing.

The example should have also put an error glyph (like an exclamation point in a triangle, or the local equivalent) next to the problematic number. Or presented it in reverse, or with an unusually thick border. Anything but color alone.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#59

Post by lessclue »

duxup wrote: post #40
stronglikedan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, why "ud"? It seems like any two letter subdomain works in the same way.

Honestly, I think that was just one I bookmarked at some point and there it is in my history ;)

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