Reimagining Boundaries: The Bold Frontier of Enterprise Application Design
Have you ever had the opportunity to stand inside a flight deck, surrounded by a multitude of buttons, dials, and complex interfaces?
I once had the privilege of experiencing it firsthand, and it left me contemplating the immense challenges faced by designers tasked with creating these intricate systems.
As I gazed at the sea of controls, I couldn’t help but marvel at the profound understanding required to design interfaces that pilots can navigate effortlessly while soaring through the skies.
The flight deck serves as a poignant reminder of the critical role that design plays in high-stakes environments. A well-designed interface can alleviate cognitive load, enhance situational awareness, and enable pilots to perform their duties with precision and confidence. On the other hand, a poorly designed one can introduce confusion, hinder decision-making, and compromise flight safety.
As a seasoned product designer with extensive experience in enterprise applications, I have gained valuable insights into the intricacies of designing for this complex environment. I can testify that designing enterprise applications and internal tools is a whole different dimension with a unique set of challenges that demand a specific type of designer hat different than consumer-facing applications.
While visuals play an essential role in design, enterprise applications primarily focus on data, numbers, and task completion.
Some would argue that since your users are internal or enterprises you would have more leverage and more access to your user base. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. Internal users are too aware of the system and they are too invested in for all purposes. External enterprise users lack emotion, they are there to complete a task. You can’t woo them with looks.
Yichen He approaches from a refreshing perspective:
The drawback is they also have full time jobs they need to balance, so it might be hard to obtain their precious time. If you can manage that, they are usually eager to offer more feedback than you might expect.
Software Thinking
As partner to design thinking, A designer in the enterprise space must possess a deep understanding of how software works. You need to know your algorithms, how data is presented when relevant and to correct set of users.
Unlike consumer applications, enterprise software is not solely driven by visual aesthetics but rather by the efficient handling of vast amounts of data. Biggest pitfall I have seen in all my career are spreadsheets. It is easy to just rely on data tables and side sheets that display the details for each unit on the table.
Equipped with a comprehensive knowledge of the underlying technology stack, system architecture, and data flow is crucial for designing effective solutions and helps crafting more exciting solutions than data tables. This understanding enables designers to optimize workflows, identify usability bottlenecks, and create interfaces that facilitate efficient task completion.
Backend-Focused Designer
Contrary to the prevailing notion that frontend design takes center stage, a product designer with a stronger focus on backend considerations can bring immense value to enterprise applications. Backend design involves structuring the data models, designing robust APIs, and optimizing performance. By collaborating closely with backend engineers and understanding their constraints, a product designer can contribute to enhancing system efficiency, reducing complexity, and ultimately improving the overall user experience.
The Tradeoff Between Flexibility and Usability
Enterprise applications often face a critical challenge of balancing flexibility and usability. On one hand, excessive flexibility, as seen in platforms like SAP, can result in complexity that requires dedicated users and extensive training. On the other hand, sacrificing flexibility for simplicity might restrict users’ ability to perform certain actions efficiently. Striking the right balance becomes crucial, and a skilled product designer can navigate this tradeoff by leveraging user research, iterative design, and an understanding of user personas to create a system that is both flexible and intuitive.
The Mission-Critical Nature of Enterprise Design
Designing enterprise applications goes beyond individual users; it has far-reaching implications that impact entire organizations. The work of a product designer in this context has a multiplying effect, influencing the productivity, efficiency, and overall user experience for a large number of people.
A poorly designed enterprise application can result in delayed responses from support teams, system crashes, and frustrated end users. Therefore, the role of a product designer becomes mission-critical, as they must ensure a smooth, reliable, and user-friendly experience that aligns with the organization’s goals.
It is important to mention the influence of Henry Dreyfuss on product design.
Even in the context of enterprise applications. Dreyfuss, a renowned industrial designer, emphasized a methodical approach that considered human dimensions, sizes, and capabilities when designing products.
Dreyfuss believed that good design should be intuitive and effortless for users, promoting a seamless interaction between humans and machines without compromising one bit of functionality and usability.
Designers can easily adopt Dreyfuss’s methodical approach to human-centered design to enterprise space. Helping them strike a balance between usability, efficiency, and aesthetics.
Understandably not every designer loves to work behind a curtain, under the radar. Yet, nothing compares to satisfaction of exceeding practical expectations, providing seamless experiences that showcase the transformative impact of design in this scene.
