Why do so many software developers spend so little time and effort on the way their solutions look? The way a solution looks and functions have a huge impact on its success and we spend more time than most developers paying special attention to this area.
The benefits of a great visual experience should never be underestimated. We find that users spend
less time trying to locate the information they need, they learn the applications quicker and
productivity improves.
It is such a shame today that most software developers have virtually no imagination with the look
and feel of their products. They will probably tell you that the way a piece of software looks is
not important, it pushes the costs up, and it doesn't benefit the client...
The reality is that the way an application looks and feels is probably the most important part of
its success. You must never forget that it will be used by people. It is these people that have
the greatest influence on your efficiency and if you provide them with a difficult to use and
poorly thought out solution then they are going to slow down. And it should be added with your
business.
People are emotional. They react positively to great experiences and negatively to unpleasant
experiences, software is no different. Just look at the increase in home computing brought on by
Microsoft and Apple's dedication to making their systems easier to use and more interactive.
Sadly, we see the opposite occur so many times in the workplace. A software company writes an
application for a business and pays little or no attention to how it will work in the office.
What worked fine in testing suddenly starts to cause problems in the heated office environment and
people lose faith.
Every day we visit businesses and look at their systems and often find ourselves asking the same
questions "Why aren't you using that feature?" and the answers we get are almost always the same
"It is too slow to use", "The information is shown in the wrong format", "No one bothers to use
that anymore"!
And what do they do in its place? They create a workaround. Perhaps another application is added
to the desktop to make up for the inadequacies of the original or someone creates a workaround in
Excel.
The conclusion is simple: Make an application visually stunning and easy to use and people will
want to use it. Develop it so it is difficult to understand and poor to look at and people will
try and do anything to avoid it.
