Poor recognition of the important role that a Graphical User Interface (GUI) plays in modern software has undermined the take up of enterprise mashup technologies. The latest example I’ve seen is the systemic failure of corporate IT to include GUI design and development tasks in their plans for a new enterprise mashup.
Operational managers recognised that their existing desktop GUI was failing to deliver efficient process support. This forced users to navigate more than a dozen apps in one business process. An enterprise mashup project was identified and initiated to provide a new desktop solution. However no GUI design tasks and no tasks for building the HTML interface were planned. When the project started the developers had no understanding of what they were to build and the business had no way of visualising what the solution would be like to use, consequently four weeks into the project they were three weeks with 75% of the spent budget wasted.
This is not an isolated case. Over the last ten years of designing enterprise mashups I’ve consistently seen the following problems within corporate IT that have undermined the very idea of a mashup:
- internal corporate IT has no GUI design skills or practice methodology
- project design and development is outsourced to a IT system integrator that has no GUI design skills or practice methodology
- issued project plans have no tasks or skilled resources in the areas of GUI design
- end users are mistakenly thought to have the skills necessary to design their own GUI
- engineers with HTML/CSS build experience are mistakenly thought to have the skills necessary to design a quality GUI
- technical pre-sales employees from the mashup software provider are mistakenly thought to have the skills necessary to design a quality GUI
- little understanding of what a quality GUI actually is: one that supports the end users’ work patterns like a glove and is a joy to use
- no understanding of the enormity of the opportunity for the business by implementing high quality GUI
Almost everybody is now a power user of the web and this does mean they are more likely to notice issues of poor GUI. However this does not mean they have the credentials to solve these issues.
Now I believe that the answer lies in accepting that this situation is also a product opportunity. There is a need for GUI design guidance and structures to be built-in to enterprise mashup software platforms. Enterprise mashup software needs to transform itself from being an enemy of IT to being a valuable friend. This is possible by addressing the GUI skills gap through the bundling of native standards and strict guidelines.
This opportunity brief is being met by Apple who are demonstrating with iOS app development how to deal with this problem. Now the arrival of the Mac App Store might do the same for their laptops and desktops. Just maybe Apple will provide the next enterprise mashup platform, and resolve the important issue of the GUI?
negative branding with new generation digital
There are so many things wrong with my HSBC business banking web site that I’m just going to have to start blogging about them as therapy. But of course underneath this there is a fundamental issue on why some of the most cashed up customer facing organisations in the world have such appalling investment in their customer experience with new generation technologies. They do care about broadcasting the right words in their marketing campaigns but I’m not interested in being on the receiving end of such broadcasts – I’m interested in a great experience, particularly when I’ve got work to do!
Let’s start with what we all want to do when running a business – check our balances and recent use across our accounts, this is the most basic journey I do on a regular basis.
Logon:
I like the secure ID token that HSBC use it’s much easier than Barclays key generator to carry around and use, and its secure enough for my level of banking. And the logon process itself is fine to use but I’ve only got one business and I have to keep telling HSBC this each time I log in, as it stands they don’t show me my accounts until I select my business. You might think it’s only one click but it’s more than that – they don’t bother to get to know me – they don’t care. And besides I think single clicks all add up too, just give me my accounts next time I log in please!
Balances:
I get straight to my Account Balances screen but how’s this for an experience?
The first 70% of the screen is used to display information I’m not interested in. I want to do business banking and I’m confronted with a header that offers me tabs for everything else to the point that my banking is the last tab to the right. There shouldn’t even be any other business banking tabs as they offer exploratory routes for people who want to discover information about other business services, whereas I want to get on with some work. Give over the screen to my work please!
There’s a huge red title screaming at me ‘Balances’ when I know I’m there, but apparently I need a subtitle as well ‘Overview of balances’ just in case I don’t recognise what the information below actually is, which is sort of impossible given that the word “balances” turns up 7 times on this one screen where there is very little else to read.
But how about putting an advert in the most useful area of the screen for me to interact with when I want to work, particularly when there is a huge empty column area to the right of the screen not being used for anything? Simply move the ads to the right – even Google understands this basic courtesy! And thats where its all wrong isn’t it – no courtesy, no thinking about the customer only about what the bank wants to sell, well that’s one sad brand statement!
More space gets wasted on telling me the same information every time I visit: “Please select an ’Account number’ to view more details on the account balance.” The fact this piece of advice has to even be displayed tells you that they have so little faith in the design of the site they can’t expect people to know how to find and click on the account link!
Then I get the most useful warning statement: ”Please note: Balances on all other currency accounts (not GBP) are as at close of business on the previous working day.” But I don’t even have any other non-GBP accounts and my bank of all people should know this! A quick look at my account list and yes I can confirm that I have no foreign currency accounts, so if they’re displaying my list to me why don’t they know? Of course they do know and it’s a simple task in software development to dynamically remove the statement from my balances screen but it’s obviously deemed of little value to the bank. But for me, the customer, it’s another demonstration of how they don’t care to know me, reminding me that I’m of little consequence, and the fact that my balances get shoved further down the screen is not of any interest to them.
As a result of all this misappropriation of space my balances turn up at the very bottom of the screen – and I have a decent 1280×800 screen – where the balances are displayed like an afterthought with no clear visual separation from other text. They’re also displayed in the extremely poor choice of RED text making each account appear overdrawn (and with similarly twisted logic the letters “DR” beside my credit card balance are displayed in black)?! After finally getting there – what a mess! Am I in the Red – the Black ?!*
I had intended to get onto looking at my recent account activity but that’ll have to wait until part 2 as I’ve been logged out twice already (there’s a bug in the site that randomly logs you out regardless of the standard inactivity timeout – makes you wonder about the testing and technical standards employed?).
Ben Stewart
ben@cautionyourblast.com
