Trap of simplicity vs excuse of complexity - Enterprise app design

-

New Consumer applications have taken the human centric design and simplified UX to such a great height that its influence on Enterprise application is inevitable. But are Consumer applications and Enterprise applications comparable in terms of its users and complexities? When I see enterprise applications (like SAP, Oracle, even Salesforce), I see this 


Now in the name of simplicity, it will be foolish to expect this in cockpit (within budget)


Consumer Applications and Enterprise applications are different. A simplified and minimalistic App design may score high in Learnability ad Delightful but will be Useless and Ineffective for most of the advanced users. This is "TRAP OF SIMPLICITY". 

There is also no second opinion that enterprise Apps are less human centric and look drab in the name of "Complexity" and "Flexibility". That is "EXCUSE OF COMPLEXITY".  The scope of improvement in Enterprise App UX is humongous but may lie in different direction. 

Coming back to plane cockpit, it has also gone through design changes to minimize human errors and to guardrail in operations. One such example: In 1980s, there were many plane accidents because of "Human error"; pilots were dropping flap instead of wheels while landing switches were identical and placed next to each other. Then it was decided to give visual mapping to these switches by making physical changes as below: Landing gear should look like wheel where as flap gear like flaps. 
 
(source: National Transportation Safety Report 1980)

Today the knobs for landing and flap look as below:



Bottom line: Design should be User centric and focus should be on UX and not only on UI. Here is Dilbert's take on UX and UI






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Field force tracking app - free app made using Google services in weekend !

-
Image
There are many SMEs who may want to track their field force but such application development is not so pocket friendly. One such company reached out to me and I took it as a hobby project. To my surprise, it came out so nicely that kept me thinking how powerful Goggle services are.  Customer required  Configurability in drafting information the company will like to capture during field activities Geo tagging field activities  Dashboard and analytics Solution: Google form was at the center in creating the solution. Google form integrated with Google Script was able to Geocode and reverse geocode. This link was then opened from native Android App using webview. Pre-filled form gave convenience to ground users of not filling redundant info every time e.g. employee details. Google form was then integrated with Sheet and then Map to create complete GIS based dashboard. Google Sheet charts, maps were then integrated with Google site to create a dashboard for manager.  Goog...
Read more

Are EVs eco-friendly in India?

-
Image
For sometime, the thought troubled me. Electric Vehicles get the juice from power grid so are they really eco-friendly or its just a marketing stunt. Lets analyze: We need 20KWh at the production site to charge EVs for 100 km run. A coal based thermal plant (in India) emits 980 grams of CO2 per 1 kWh as per CEA  considering Gross Calorific Value and Station Heat Rate. So 100 KM by EV emits 19.4 KG of CO2. And the same 100 m run by a Petrol hatchback will emit 13.2 KG ! Oh my my!!! However, Indian grid does not provide power only from coal based thermal plant. It's still 80:20. Simple algebra will tell us we need 68% power from thermal and remaining from renewable to match the emission level of Petrol Hatchback.  But renewable need balancing plants to mitigate variability in grid. Normally gas based plants are used for this purpose. Thankfully gas only emits 50% of CO2 than that of coal based plants. So we need renewable plants towards 60% to make EVs "ECO-FRIENDLY". Long ...
Read more

Autonomous Car - so kool !

-
Image
Who will not like to see Autonomous, Intelligent car in a movie? And if it becomes a reality? won't it be so cool, right? It's a dream, figment of imagination and amazement of a child. And a project of amusement for many. I wonder, what is the need and business case behind spending so much to achieve a fully automated car. Is it to create a sequel of "Total Recall" without using animation or to achieve a personal goal like "blue moon".  Safety Tesla, Waymo and many have stated safety as the objective behind AV project. Well, 97% of road accidents are attributed to human error! So humans have to be replaced with AI. But why don't we spend in human? In the end you can get same result by spending in either Tech or Human.  Then why are tech companies spending so much in Technology? Because spending in Y axis makes them "high" and "kool"; that is why the axis is titled "K". Making Money In Elon Musk's words "Enable your...
Read more