The 6 Most Common UX Mistakes In Enterprise Apps |
Posted: February 24, 2018 |
The 7 Most Common UX Mistakes In Enterprise AppsIf you look at the top rated apps anywhere – Google Playstore, iTunes, or elsewhere, you’ll see that they all have one feature in common – great design. Today, it is the same for enterprise apps as well; after all, mobile apps for employee use has become very commonplace today. According to Gartner, by 2020, 75% of Enterprises will have at least one internal mobile app. Enterprise apps are very different from the usual apps targeted at customers; they have several user profiles, require higher security and necessitate consideration of legacy software. Moreover, it has to hit the spot when rolled out – multiple iterations are just going to disrupt your workflow. One may argue that as Enterprise apps are for employee use mainly, they will use it because they have to regardless of the ease of use or functionality. That’s not true however. Take a look at why it’s important to have good UX in enterprise apps:
The current scenario in India has changed in a way that, it’s become important for Enterprises to not only hire any of the professional mobile app development companies in India, but also give equal importance to hiring any of the professional UX agencies for your enterprise app design and development. But, in India, there are only limited number of UX agencies who really focus on all the aspects of UX design and with an attention to detail - so it’s really important to to find out the top UX agencies in India for your Enterprise app UX.
The 7 Most Common UX Mistakes Made In Enterprise App Development1) Employees Won’t Care about the Design or Experience Aha! But you’re sadly mistaken – your employees are consumers elsewhere, and are probably already using up to a dozen apps – for banking, shopping, booking hotels, and more. So if you thrust a badly designed app down their throats, it simply won’t do! They will have scant motivation to use the app, or may spend an inordinate amount of time doing it because it’s too complicated and confusing. True, the main purpose of an enterprise app is to ensure that a particular job gets done, but why not make it easy for your employees? They will use it often without spending too much time on it and this will make them smarter and alert to the current business situation of the company. Here are some tips to ensure intuitiveness and make it seem like another consumer app:
2) Going it Alone
Regardless of how experienced you may be as an enterprise app developer, it’s always a good idea to brainstorm with the whole team. Let designers and developers voice their ideas; you never know from where the words of wisdom will come! It is also prudent to check with the specific department for whom the app is being developed. For example, let’s say you need to make an app for the HR department; the developer or the whole team even, may not be that well versed with all aspects of the HR department. Ergo, it makes sense to collaborate with the relevant personnel at the design stage to incorporate whatever they need.
3) Doing Away with Legacy Software
When an enterprise is upgrading or switching over to a new app, one of the main reasons for doing so is the realization that the old one is outdated. The old app probably does not cater to the changing needs of the enterprise anymore. However, the team developing the app needs to consider that most of the end users of the app have been used to certain features of the app for years, and are comfortably familiar with certain workflows. It’s rather like the old pair of shoes that have holey soles and faded uppers but you can’t throw them away because they are so comfy! So what you need to do is take stock; determine what features or parts of the old software the employees swear by, and retain them in the UX of the new app. So you give the employees a sense of comfort without compromising on the efficiency or functionality, and helps makes the transition smooth.
4) Designing for the buyer, not the user
No product can be rolled out effectively without proper research of the target audience. A number of enterprise app developers believe that their job is to follow the instructions of the buyer, usually meaning the IT department, and create an app that meets its expectations. But this is far from the right approach, because the buyer in this case is not the end user.
The IT department will only tell you about the product it wants. But designing an effective UX requires a sound understanding of the expectations of the end user.
Users in a specific industry, company, or workplace have certain behaviors and patterns they are comfortable with. The way they are accustomed to navigating the existing enterprise software, the jargon they use at work, and their current tech dependence are some factors that need to be considered before jumping into the development process.
These factors vary by industry, and the solutions you develop for a transport company may not help you one bit when developing an app for a healthcare company.
It is, therefore, imperative that you conduct thorough user research with the help of interviews, surveys, and observation.
5) Innovating too little, or too much
On one end of the wheel are enterprise apps whose developers refuse to put any effort into improving the UX. Employees are a captive audience, and there is no pressure to sell the app. On the other end is an over enthusiastic developer who decides to redesign everything. Nifty icons and innovative graphics can look beautiful, but there's value in sticking to conventions when it comes to standard practices. For instance, "close" should always be denoted by an "x" symbol, to avoid any confusion. It’s a good decision to adhere to design guidelines recommended by Apple, Android, and other app stores. As Apple succinctly puts it, “Don’t use system-defined buttons and icons to mean something else.” 6) Not adapting across devices
Legacy enterprise software was designed to be used on desktop computers. Mobile apps, on the other hand, are used on smartphones and tablets, whose screens can range from 4 inches to 10 inches. A zoom-to-fit app interface just won’t cut it for a technology-fluent generation that often uses more than one device on a daily basis. An enterprise app must seamlessly adapt to all kinds of devices and screens.
7) Learn from others' failures
Understanding areas where enterprise apps are falling behind consumer apps and working on them will not only help develop better, more enjoyable apps, but also save the enterprise money in the long term in the form of lower training costs, increased productivity, better employee satisfaction, and reduced load on the IT department.
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