Comments on: Friday’s Feature: Snapshots In Enterprise 2.0 UX/UI – IFS Applications http://blog.softwareinsider.org/2009/02/13/friday%e2%80%99s-feature-snapshots-in-enterprise-20-uxui-ifs/ Your buy side advocate for enterprise apps strategies, vendor selection, & contract negotiations Fri, 18 May 2012 17:16:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Uwe Mueller http://blog.softwareinsider.org/2009/02/13/friday%e2%80%99s-feature-snapshots-in-enterprise-20-uxui-ifs/comment-page-1/#comment-616 Uwe Mueller Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:26:14 +0000 http://blog.softwareinsider.org/?p=1383#comment-616 It's inspirational to see such good UI. After old mainframe screens and limited featured html, its nice to see rich internet solutions with new technology. .NET products seem to be more advanced. When will SAP and Oracle catch up ? UwE Mueller UX designer It’s inspirational to see such good UI. After old mainframe screens and limited featured html, its nice to see rich internet solutions with new technology. .NET products seem to be more advanced. When will SAP and Oracle catch up ?

UwE Mueller
UX designer

]]> By: Mike Ni http://blog.softwareinsider.org/2009/02/13/friday%e2%80%99s-feature-snapshots-in-enterprise-20-uxui-ifs/comment-page-1/#comment-605 Mike Ni Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:21:53 +0000 http://blog.softwareinsider.org/?p=1383#comment-605 It is great to see energy behind really thinking through the user experience - whether under the guise of enterprise 2.0, consumerization, or even Total Ownership Experience (remember that one, Ray?). Without being a user experience expert, I thought I would answer your calls for comments. It starts with the challenge I've heard from the '90's - Amazon doesn't need an owners manual. The example shown reflect a lot of power ... and for some reason, I fear that still reflects much of enterprise software thinking today. IFS has combined a lot of the right elements... - portal like - context driven right hand / secondary navigation increasingly important for better guidance (e.g,. when did an app actually make you better at your job) - familiar browser metaphor and controls - one can hope, a new way to navigate directly to tasks and records, as well as unstructured content via search ... but lacks style, regardless of whether they took Apple's reflective gunmetal greys. - plethora of buttons and things that could be buttons, icons, and dark shadows that all draw at the eye and attention - traditional looking forms surrounded by blocks of stuff. While the navigation and right hand context menus provide interesting navigation, I am not sure we are seeing innovation on how to present and capture information. Examples where tremendous amount of information is distilled by an interesting use of RIA is something like mint.com - the search screen shot seems to be access to find stuff, but seems to miss the opportunity to actually bring answers forward. For instance, rather than a list of puchase records that match the search criteria, the top of the results list could include a couple widgets that show a summary of that PO without having to navigate to the record, expose some quick actions appropriate, such as approve ... all within the search context, making search an integral part of the application flow and usage model. These experiments in user experience on platforms that provide for rapid experimentation generate the real UI innovation ... to come. The limited IFS examples here reflect template driven designs that look quick to modify and extend, but unlike Apple, these templates are utilitarian lacking some of the style that Apple provides with its templates that allow even poor artists like me look decent. Great to see folks like IFS and Oracle CRM pushing our collective UX thinking forward. The great thing about UI is everyone can have an opinion. In addition, it evolves as we, as an industry, continue to mature our thinking, even as our customers become more demanding of how they interact with the services that hopefully help them do their jobs. It is great to see energy behind really thinking through the user experience – whether under the guise of enterprise 2.0, consumerization, or even Total Ownership Experience (remember that one, Ray?). Without being a user experience expert, I thought I would answer your calls for comments.

It starts with the challenge I’ve heard from the ’90′s – Amazon doesn’t need an owners manual. The example shown reflect a lot of power … and for some reason, I fear that still reflects much of enterprise software thinking today.

IFS has combined a lot of the right elements…
- portal like
- context driven right hand / secondary navigation increasingly important for better guidance (e.g,. when did an app actually make you better at your job)
- familiar browser metaphor and controls
- one can hope, a new way to navigate directly to tasks and records, as well as unstructured content via search

… but lacks style, regardless of whether they took Apple’s reflective gunmetal greys.
- plethora of buttons and things that could be buttons, icons, and dark shadows that all draw at the eye and attention
- traditional looking forms surrounded by blocks of stuff. While the navigation and right hand context menus provide interesting navigation, I am not sure we are seeing innovation on how to present and capture information. Examples where tremendous amount of information is distilled by an interesting use of RIA is something like mint.com
- the search screen shot seems to be access to find stuff, but seems to miss the opportunity to actually bring answers forward. For instance, rather than a list of puchase records that match the search criteria, the top of the results list could include a couple widgets that show a summary of that PO without having to navigate to the record, expose some quick actions appropriate, such as approve … all within the search context, making search an integral part of the application flow and usage model.

These experiments in user experience on platforms that provide for rapid experimentation generate the real UI innovation … to come. The limited IFS examples here reflect template driven designs that look quick to modify and extend, but unlike Apple, these templates are utilitarian lacking some of the style that Apple provides with its templates that allow even poor artists like me look decent. Great to see folks like IFS and Oracle CRM pushing our collective UX thinking forward.

The great thing about UI is everyone can have an opinion. In addition, it evolves as we, as an industry, continue to mature our thinking, even as our customers become more demanding of how they interact with the services that hopefully help them do their jobs.

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