Comments on: Does design matter in a UI?

By: Useful – The Only Criteria Software Should Be Measured Against « The WaveAdept Blog

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:34:44 +0000

[...] to be fair, no-one knows except the person using the software at that particular moment. The UI can have an impact, the response can have an impact, the actual job to be done of course has a huge [...]

By: Dennis Howlett

Dennis Howlett — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:35:37 +0000

Describing Google’s UI as ‘ugly’ utterly misses the point. Google spent a lot of time getting it right. It is clean, simple, draws the user to where they need to be and does exactly what it says on the tin. Why would you change that? Especially given the speed with which Google returns results. Again – part of Google’s design. You simply can’t refresh with complex screens and especially if they’ve a ton of overhead like AJAX.

The problem is that the ‘make’ people have had very little access to business. UI’s have almost always been an afterthought. On our ESME project, UI design is an integral part of the design methodology. We have several non-geeks on the team, precisely to ensure we get it right plus a usability expert.

By: Mike Riversdale

Mike Riversdale — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:15:11 +0000

Google spend millions on their (ugly?) UI knowing that it is not separate and distinct from the functionality but wrapped up in it (a fish without water is a dead fish; “fish” can be either the UI or the functionality and “water” the same – you choose)

By: Julian

Julian — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:17:55 +0000

Well said Falafulu Fisi!

By: Falafulu Fisi

Falafulu Fisi — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:54:48 +0000

Google is the most ugliest of any kind I’ve seen in everything UI. But it is the functionality that keep users using Google’s apps & services because what they offer are more important than how they look (ie, not worry too much because it is not a UI beauty contest). I think UI is still important, but I wouldn’t want to spend huge amount of time to make it beautiful only to come second in functionality contest.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:24:24 +0000

Isn’t one of the defining charactoristics of SaaS apps that people buy them because they use them as opposed to on prem – people use it cos they bought it…

If thats true the UI is very important

By: Mike Riversdale

Mike Riversdale — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:52:02 +0000

(wow, what timing as I have a post just about to go out that is so related

I think the UI is part and parcel of how ‘useful’ it is.
If the app is hard to use (because of UI issues) it becomes less useful.

And being useful is what it’s all about, no?

As for people in ivory towers making decisions for those below that use the s/w … probably what on see’s as useful is different (or disconnected) to the other. Where was the true collaboration around this?

By: Julian

Julian — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:57:22 +0000

It’s not a black or white issue. Whilst it’s always important to continually strive to improve usability, the UI is less important than the actual working processes of the application.

And every vertical industry has a different perception of UI importance. For example, in web based project management software like our http://www.ProWorkflow.com, it’s important to designers and creatives to have a good UI, but the engineers and cleaners using the tool don’t really care about UI.

That’s my two cents…

By: ninefish

ninefish — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:59:33 +0000

there’s a hell of a lot of lock-in for data and pre existing software, so I don’t think that the UI is a major issue for many bits of software. It’s probably not the first thought about new software and it’s often well after the fact that the annoyance comes out about the nuance in any interface: workflow is the biggest issue IMO. It’s possible to skin a lot of things if you’re willing to tinker with stuff, and if you don’t mind getting a little code on your hands, you can fix a lot of UI issues even if you can’t fix the workflow.

By: Gripnostril

Gripnostril — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:59:01 +0000

In part your right. Enterprises, in my experience, have an approach with internal sites of design by committee…the result being users having to put up with the proverbial. Changing this is the same process….committee design, accommodating “all needs” meeting none. I don’t they they don’t consider UI, but in an effort based on “compromise” everyone’s “bit” of UI is met, but the whole isn’t. Many will argue that this is not the case, they have internal “specialists” etc… the end result is the same, they have to “discuss” the needs of many groups, come up with a UI for all…”camel”

I agree that SME’s are limited by money, but as noted in the posts discussed, taking the Google model…less is more, so with an approach like this, money shouldn’t be an issue.