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Whitespace killed an enterprise app

uxdesign.cc

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Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#81

Post by Bjartr »

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. They don't know what they need or want. People are horrible at being logical about what will actually help them.

Asking them to describe the problems they have and doing exactly what they say will fix those problems are two very different things. The difficult, but critical, step here is to decipher what root problem should be fixed given the feedback users have given you. Sometimes the right thing to change is something the user never would have thought of to ask for, but can be figured out from what they did ask for.

Remember, your users (usually) aren't UX designers, they just know where they get frustrated.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#83

Post by arkitaip »

fermienrico wrote: post #35
jasode wrote: post #22

>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…

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.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#84

Post by adrianhel »

tom_ wrote: post #54
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.

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

Users have ideas. These ideas are motivated by pains and pleasures.

When asked what they want, they present the ideas they believe will reduce pains or increase the pleasure of using the software.

It's up to you to 1. Determine if the idea reduces pain, increases pleasure or both. 2. Test whether the hypotheses are correct.

Rephrased: Users come up with untested ideas

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#86

Post by Khoth »

Tepix wrote: post #46

The local bank office used to have text terminals (ok, this is a long time ago). I distinctly remember that they got much slower at getting work done when they switched to a colorful GUI. They did not switch back to the text terminals. If you deal with processes that don't change much, it's a questionable decision.

Yes, terminals could be a lot faster.

A major advantage that often seemed to be overlooked in the rush from terminals to web pages is that if you pressed a key that took you to the next screen, your next keypresses would be queued up and they'd go into the next screen when it was ready. So if workers were following a familiar process, there was often zero latency when changing screens because they could just start typing into the box they knew was going to appear.

Web based things made this worse because you have to actually wait for the new page to load before you can start typing.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#87

Post by sodosopa »

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…

Also another great example about why user and accessibility testing are very very important. It was downright ignored and when pressed the Admins admitted it. Leave your beliefs at the door and fucking watch how the user interacts with your site, then ask them why they make those choices. Buy them a beer or whatever gets them to talk.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#88

Post by lowercased »

duxup wrote: post #72
lesss365 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made you switch to development?

The industry I worked in was networking (data center products, routers for ISPs, etc), but technical support. I did that for 20 years. Even though it was pretty high end stuff.... everyone hates technical support and I found that generally companies eventually devalue it as time goes on. I got tired of that system. I got paid really well but just got tired of seeing the atmosphere at company after company get more ne…

> Then someone would roll out metrics that show those folks overseas who just close cases are doing great because ... they just close cases without solving the issue.

We've all got bad metrics stories, but wanted to share this one.

Friend at megacorp was doing JS work, and working with the offshore team in India (few people in the US, and 3-4x as many in India IIRC). India team was "killing it" because of all the issues closed, and the US team was getting crap because they "took forever".

One of the mandates was "when you commit code, you need to have a test for it". Friend checked out the offshored code, ran the tests, and ... they failed. Almost all - a few worked by accident, but they were failing tests. Actually, when he first ran the test suite, his whole system locked up and crashed - the test suite runner couldn't deal with that many failures (that was my impression based on the symptoms and repeatability).

The 'defense', such as it was, was that no one had instructed anyone that the tests should actually be run or pass, just that test files needed to be committed with regular code. So they'd write empty tests, or copy/paste code from other tests. The line count and 'closed issues' were both great - so much better than the US counterparts. It's just that... literally... nothing was actually being tested. Budgets were cut and he and a bunch of other folks didn't have their contract renewed - they put more money in to the offshore team. :/

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#89

Post by _57jb »

Sounds like UX failure.

A large part of design is incorporating obvious workflows from non-obvious systems.

User testing, iterative development, some type of strong feedback loop are all tools we leverage to combat this outcome.

I understand why the title was used but it really falls short in highlighting just how critical and valuable UX is as part of the development process.

It isn't just these stylish hipsters building art on storyboards which is what I am arguing your title implies....its about UX bridging the user with the developer as well ensuring their voice is not only heard but can drive the process.

Re: Whitespace killed an enterprise app

#90

Post by foobarrio »

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.

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.
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