Designing a UI for an enterprise, complex, commercial browser app.

2 points by ux_designer 14 years ago | 2 comments

I am designing a very complex enterprise application. I have developers with me that can make all the UI ideas possible. And I've done a great deal of UX work leading up to designing the UI and interactions.

My quandary is that I don't really have any experience with highly enterprise style products.

Essentially I am building a browser based product, which basically functions like a website. And I have license to make it as usable and friendly as possible.

So, instead of looking at startup apps or well done websites, where does one go to see inspiration or ideas for highly complex, well done enterprise/commercial apps that run in a browser?

teyc 14 years ago |

Is your application highly complex? Are your users highly technically skilled and constantly using this application? Highly complex UIs arise from highly complex situations - think plant-processing control rooms - lots of dials, switches and blinking status lights.

If the answer is: the user doesn't regularly use this piece of software, or this application is ancillary to their primary task, then you should fall back to simplicity, remembering that simplicity and directness is difficult because it involves paring back what is less used.

Here are some general guidelines:

Go back to first principles. Understand the key process, identify the critical path and make it simple to perform common tasks.

Make it easy to remember context. Recently accessed searches are more likely to be re-used. Do you store these?

Avoid modal interactions, because the user may have to jump out of their current activities midstream to perform another task, and then return to where they were.

A significant portion of support time for enterprise product is due to administrators misconfiguring the product. Nail those down so that it is difficult to get wrong.

ux_designer 14 years ago |

To expand a bit, Ive done a great deal of UX work and research, more of what I'm worried about is the visual appeal and attractiveness.

It's easy for me to make a slick, good looking startup splash page or website. But I am not totally sure what makes a enterprise, behind the firewall app still be attractive and "cool" while maintaining its critica function. Part of my challenge is to get emotional buy in and "fun" in the ease of use.

Or are people people and just stick to whatever works in the b2c world when it comes to visuals and aesthetic?