Enterprise Applications Need Design

Enterprise applications often get overlooked when it comes time to spend energy on creating an effective interface. There are real benefits to delivering an intuitive interface for an enterprise application and real penalties to be paid for having a poor one.

As the commercial consumer software world increasingly awakens to the need to provide intuitive and easy-to-use products, one area that often comes up short is the enterprise application served up to its captive audience of employees and extranet partners. The thinking seems to be: it works, they have to use it, they can learn the awkward or difficult interface- deal with it. Besides, who has time or resources (like money) to spend on making an enterprise tool look pretty or perform intuitively?

The reality is this: just as shrink-wrapped applications sell more copies when they deliver a pleasant user experience, enterprise applications gain greater user acceptance and adoption than those that are painful to use. The users themselves generate increased productivity when the tools they use are effective and don’t require steep learning curves. What this translates to is better leveraging of your automated resources.

For example, the intranet application that enables employees to update their withholding information potentially saves many expensive calls to tech support and HR staff. When the employee can easily find the tool to make the change, and can readily see the information and receive confident confirmation of success, no phone calls are needed, and he can quickly get back to working on something to benefit the company.

Consider the reverse. The application was difficult to find on the intranet, so the employee wasted a half-hour wading through the site before stumbling on it. Many of his co-workers will have already tied up the lines calling HR by now. Once he finds the application, it is not entirely clear what his current deductions are, but he figures out how to enter his new figures. Once he submits his information, if the system fails to give a clear, unambiguous confirmation that his changes were accepted, he’ll call to confirm. Similar scenarios play out when we look at customer relationship management systems, inventory applications, call center automation systems, whatever.

The longer and more frustrating the experience the user has translates directly to lost productivity and lost profits. When you consider total cost of ownership, investing in a solid, well-designed user experience more than pays for itself. Effective user experience in enterprise applications should not be overlooked just because an organization’s end customer doesn’t interact with it. Usable internal applications are not simply “nice-to-have”s. If you are in a business with narrow or sensitive margins, having excellent enterprise applications can be a significant competitive advantage for your business.