diversity.net.nz

Interesting post over on Dennis’ blog about design. He quotes some peoples perspectives on whether UI is an important attribute for an offering. In relation to enterprise UIs, Natalie Hanson says;

For the most part, an EUI doesn’t have to win over its users.  An employee is essentially trapped - they need to get their job done, and there is only one system available to execute their work.  So for business systems, we may not see poor UI reflect in adoption statistics, but the problems will show in time-to-task completion, data quality, or lack usage for non-required tasks

Which I agree with - the fact that enterprise solutions are generally decided upon from on high, leads to a degree of entrapment and the acceptance of a poor experience.

Dennis then comments that;

I’m surprised. In the SMB world, users do not tolerate poor UIs. They simply eschew the products

Which is interesting given some previous posts here about UIs and whether they really matter. The fact is that I believe that Dennis is wrong when he says that SMBs are any less trapped than enterprises - the pain to change for an SME is similar to the inability to change in an enterprise - so the bottom line is that while UIs matter, they matter most when getting folks to sign up to your offering - thereafter your UI could look like a cross between the back end of a bus and the awful face of your first grade teacher but you’d still persevere.

Don’t agree? Just have a look at the mass market around you!

Share the love...

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »