Thomas Otter has a really great post talking about how enterprise UIs need to be more like “consumer” applications and that lumping business applications into a separate pile allows us to torture people needless in the name of “enterprise complexity.” While I agree with a lot of Thomas says — deep in there I think he may have unknowingly hit upon an important topic.
Labelling things enterprise, business or even professional enables a defence of complexity that shouldn’t be tolerated without a challenge.
People log on to consumer tools because they want to, but often they log on to enterprise applications because they have to. I don’t think this should be an excuse to expose them to any more complexity than absolutely necessary
I wondered when I read this if making the tool simpler is the correct path. Maybe we can learn a lot from a company like Adobe — they have never made Photoshop any easier to use. It is incredibly powerful and incredibly hard to use, just do a Google search for “photoshop training” and “SAP training” and you may start to see the correlation — approximately 265k and 270k respectively (obviously wholly unscientific but, with a research budget of zero, that’s what you get).
“Use(full|less) Intro”
Lots of video games have totally useless and uneventful intro levels. Learning how to jump, run and fire your weapon, etc. Could it be possible that Adobe has done a good job of introducing the Photoshop tool set to it’s customers before they actually decide to go and spend the large amount of money on the big software package? I can honestly say that I don’t know if Adobe does this, do you slowly work into the larger Photoshop toolset from the other available Adobe applications? Is there some really great indoctrination path for Adobe tools? Maybe they have some brainwashing secret sauce that SAP could get.
Casual Users = Consumer Users
If you are at all interested in UI you should go buy Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. In it Norman talks about putting information into the world so that occasional users can have visual and physical clues about how to make your system work. If you keep up with Seth Godin, he mentions a similar concept in marketing, “Be obvious about it. A sign that says First Time Here in three or four languages is a fine place to start. You can explain that while you serve minestrone, the locals come for the gumbo.” This all combines into making the system usable for the people who only use it occasionally. Norman also, talks about how you have to have an understanding of what people are going to use your object for before you set on the task of designing it. Again, however, Seth has an interesting real world comparison. Why aren’t stores organized to help us shop and help us buy things:
So, all the Armani blue suits are next to each other, then by size.
So, all the boxer shorts at the Gap are on a wall, organized by style first (checks over here, stripes over there,) then by size.
So, all the power tools at Home Depot are together, sometimes by brand, sometimes by function (saw) and then by type of material to be cut (wood).
This is dumb, and the web makes it obvious why it’s dumb. It’s dumb because it makes it easier for the clerk, not for the customer. And dumb because it plays to the label’s ego, not to ours.
Does anyone say, “okay, even though my son wears size large boxers, these striped ones are really nice, I’ll buy the small instead.” Of course not.
So why not put all the large boxers right next to each other, regardless of designer and style?
Amazon and Google are designed with both these concepts in mind. Google has 1 box and 1 button. When you are searching you have something in your mind to type. Well, that goes in the box. With only one button on the screen, well human nature just forces you to push it. Amazon does a stellar job with the latter case, you just bought a pair of shoes, other people who bought that pair of shoes bought these socks. Simple? Yes. Easy to do? No.
Who are “they”
Photoshop is made for people who already understand Photo editing — it uses terms they understand and have used for years in moving from the ranks of Amateur to Professional. It puts those terms and arranges those buttons to support those Professionals’ normal mode of working.
This may force us to rethink how we target Business applications. Are “business users” (thanks for the cringe Thomas) true professionals, like our Photoshop fans or are they people who move between jobs being novices in lots of areas. Should be be designing tools to indoctrinate people into our toolset and transform them into a professional? Or are they always going to be casual users of the business tools simply consuming them as they flow through our enterprises?