Comments on: Donuts and enterprise UI innovation?

By: On user interfaces, the iPad and Charles Dickens.

On user interfaces, the iPad and Charles Dickens. — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:02:13 +0000

[...] Most enterprise applications are bound by keyboard centric design thinking, basically what I call navigation donuts. Almost every enterprise application I see is trapped in the amber of the table layouts that [...]

By: On user interfaces, the iPad and Charles Dickens. « Vendorprisey

On user interfaces, the iPad and Charles Dickens. « Vendorprisey — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:26:28 +0000

[...] enterprise applications are bound by keyboard centric design thinking, basically what I call navigation donuts. Almost every enterprise application I see is trapped in the amber of the table layouts that [...]

By: On user interfaces, the iPad and Charles Dickens.

On user interfaces, the iPad and Charles Dickens. — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:20:39 +0000

By: Visualization and HR data. « Vendorprisey

Visualization and HR data. « Vendorprisey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:56:50 +0000

[...] of table and text. I while ago about blogged about many enterprise software UIs being like Donuts. Via Steve Clayton this arrived in my feedreader this morning. It is goodness. Someone give this [...]

By: Visualization and HR data.

Visualization and HR data. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:39:41 +0000

By: Syris

Syris — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:26:04 +0000

You make a good point Thomas. Why even log into my performance appraisal application at all? I mean sure there are times when I need to have the entire toolset at my disposal for certain things (namely analytics and reporting) but it sure would be nice to be able to fire off “volunteer” data (status messages, approvals, profile updates) via other avenues like Twitter, Facebook, Outlook, etc.

By: Thomas Otter

Thomas Otter — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:16:11 +0000

Ben,
Yes, some business applications need to be all about end users sitting in departments, but more and more business applications should be about occasional and what I’m calling volunteer users.

If “enterprise” apps don’t offer these users a compelling experience, they will simply not use them. After all, how often do you willingly log on to your performance appraisal application?

By: BenBoeser

BenBoeser — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:46:02 +0000

You are right. It would be great to make business apps in a way that users like to “play” with them.

On the other hand you have to keep in mind that some (not too few) of the end users who sit in the departments of big enterprises would be completely overwhelmed by such a UI. They need their plain tables with a clear structure. And they see it as their personal value that they can interpretate the design flaws / UI pains and know what they have to click in order to achieve their tasks.
And the vendors make a lot of money to teach them how to do so.
Always ups and downs to it.

Good comparison though