All posts tagged
enterprise

The differences between enterprise and consumer UX design

It’s all about humans in the end.

“Enterprise applications typically have much greater scope and are much more complex than consumer applications, so enterprise solutions are often tailored for people working in specific roles. Plus, enterprise applications are designed for a specific business domain rather than a specific task, as many consumer applications are. Administrators usually configure enterprise applications, while consumers configure their own applications. Employees routinely use enterprise applications in their work, while the use of most consumer applications is less predictable. Enterprise applications often must connect with legacy systems.”

Janet Six a.k.a. /janetmsix ~ UXmatters

Efficient UX design within an organization

In-house, the place to be for upcoming UX professionals.

“As UX designers, we spend a lot of time helping other people to be more effective. This is the heart and soul of good design. Is the new approach making users more effective in what they do? If not, it’s failing. While there are countless articles about how to understand users and design and test applications, I want to take a look at how to make the design process itself more effective, particularly within the sometimes neglected context of designers working within—rather than contracting with an organization. While your circumstances may be different from those I’ve experienced and this column is likely to be more helpful to designers earlier in their careers, I hope it provides some value to more experienced designers as well.”

Peter Hornsby a.k.a. /peter-hornsby | @PeterHornsby ~ UXmatters

Stepping up: UX in the enterprise

Enterprise UX or UX in the enterprise. Two perspectives to closely take on.

“The primary challenges with UX result directly from the enterprise’s need for flexibility and scale. While most enterprise projects are large and complex, the actual number of design professionals needed to be effective is small relative to the overall staff. Also, the projects themselves fluctuate in volume and type of activity throughout the project lifecycle.”

Anton Baturan a.k.a. @AntonijeBaturan ~ User Experience

IBM is banking on design’s ROI

What else do you need to be convinced that Design has made it into The Enterprise.

“Companies of all sizes are recognizing that by taking a design-first approach to product development, they can improve profit. I recently sat down with Phil Gilbert, GM of design at IBM, to discuss how he is helping to lead the transformation to a design-first company within IBM. Adopting design as a key corporate asset may seem like a no-brainer, but for a company of more than 350,000 employees, it’s a massive undertaking. IBM hasn’t been quiet about its plans to hire 1,000 designers over the course of five years and embed design in product teams throughout the organization.”

(Mary Treseler a.k.a. @marytreseler ~ O’Reilly Radar)

Make enterprise software people actually love

The call for excellent UX within the enterprise ecosystem is growing and growing.

“There is a big, important change happening in digital product design. For a long time, there has been a clear split between business software (often called Enterprise or B2B), and consumer software (B2C, or simply ‘products’). That split is increasingly irrelevant.”

(John Kolko a.k.a. @jkolko ~ Harvard Business Review)

UX debt in the enterprise: A practical approach

Quants for enterprise UX, the calculator.

“As we move forward with these concepts across our organization, we expect that our company’s products will advance in their UX maturity and, consequently, pay down their debt. The calculator is a great tool for modeling this CX/UX transition in a product and reinforcing a user- and data-centric product culture.”

(Kimberly Dunwoody and Susan Teague Rector ~ User Experience)

Make user experience a top priority

The message is coming through. Slow, but consistently.

“(…) a clear link between a strategic approach to user experience and financial performance. Revenue growth, margins, valuations and share price performance were all higher for these companies relative to their respective peer group. These companies outperform because they provide consistently outstanding user experiences that help their customers succeed.”

(Gabriel Lowy ~ APM Digest)

The next UX revolution: Transforming stodgy enterprise applications into engaging experiences

Zeitgeist: IBM and Apple showed the way.

“Businesses are starting to realize the potential of good UX. With a substantial percentage of the workforce retiring in the next three to five years, organizations need software for a new wave of workers—business software that works like the apps they use at home. Our customers who have already adopted Infor’s new UX are seeing lower turnover rates, less training time, and more satisfaction among their workers. They tell us they’re hungry for more. And we’re getting ready to deliver.”

(Marc Scibelli ~ UX Magazine)

How do we solve the enterprise UX skills gap?

The enterprise finally gets the UX fever. Designers at the cutting enterprise edge.

“As CIOs grapple with the UX imperative sparked by business users and consumer apps, skills gaps will cause migraines. Catering to scarce UX rock stars will be less effective than forming balanced teams. Fortunately, some designers have already dealt with UX rethinks on mobile app creation – they’ll be an asset. Then there is the whole matter of Web UX versus overall customer experience, leading us to the enormous challenge of a great customer experience across channels.”

(Jon Reed a.k.a. @jonERP ~ Diginomica)

At the INTERSECTION of design thinking and systems thinking

Great to be part of this emergent topic and community. More to follow, that’s for sure.

A trip report from a cross-disciplinary event ~ “Last month, I attended an event on what hopefully will become a new community of knowledge and practice: strategic enterprise design. At INTERSECTION (Paris, 16-17 April 2014), the communities of experience design and enterprise architecture and design hooked up, each with their own views, opinions and insights on the enterprise of the future. The conference was a cross-disciplinary encounter of communities, previously hardly aware of each others existence. And as they say, the most interesting things happen around the edges.”

(Peter Bogaards ~ BiRDS on a W!RE)

Establish user experience transformation as a continuous evolution

Sometimes it’s going really fast when a technology giant puts its weight behind it.

“Many enterprises have committed to and invested in large digital transformations; they now need to understand that these transformations are merely the first iteration of a continuous cycle. The most successful enterprises recognize that digital initiatives are never complete – they evolve. (…) Establishing a foundation for continuous UX improvement with an end-to-end governance process and structure across an entire enterprise is critical.”

(Richard Berkman a.k.a. @RichBerk & Marvin Klein a.k.a. @thouxghts ~ IBM Interactive Experience)

The user experience of enterprise technology

Enterprise software, the apps UX forgot. Use it or you’re out!

“Most big businesses globally are locked into some kind of reliance on enterprise technology. Unfortunately such systems are not only fiendishly difficult to install and maintain, but often equally challenging for the workforce to use. When the stakes are so high, why is the user experience of enterprise systems so bad?”

(Rob Gillham ~ Foolproof)

Book review: Intersection

In just one word, “gründlich”.

“(…) for me, the contrast between designers and more science-/engineering-oriented professionals has become a long-standing theme. But I find this debate refreshing and, again and again, it leads to interesting thoughts and viewpoints. One of the recent arguments that designers put forth when emphasizing their aptness for guiding and leading strategic design initiatives is that they maintain a holistic point of view and that, unlike people with a science or engineering background, they are not blinded or paralyzed by details. Located on the other side of the trench, I am somewhat skeptical with regard to such statements. To exaggerate my point somewhat, I view designers like butterflies who jump from flower to flower and become dizzy when thinking about all the connections and interrelations between flowers/design aspects. But, as the book shows when Guenther applies his framework to a general design process, designers, too, focus on specific aspects when this seems appropriate. So there is hope for finding common ground.”

(Gerd Waloszek ~ SAPdesignguild)

Rethinking enterprise UX in the age of consumerization

A little bit of “CMS, the software UX forgot.

“In today’s digitally savvy world, end-users are making more and more decisions about what they want to get out of software solutions and how they want to experience those solutions. By keeping this in mind, UX teams can be the heroes of their own organizations – building tech experiences that both IT teams and end-users love to use.”

(Michael Ashley ~ UX Magazine)

Intersection: How enterprise design bridges the gap between business, technology and people

With this book, Milan Guenther achieved a comprehensive reframing of the Enterprise concept for the 21st century with Design as its primary driver. Intersection will become a beacon for many in the design, business and technology communities.

“Many organizations struggle with the dynamics and the complexity of today’s social ecosystems connecting everyone and everything, everywhere and all the time. Facing challenges at the intersection of business models, technical developments and human needs, enterprises must overcome the siloed thinking and isolated efforts of the past, and instead address relationships to people holistically. In Intersection, Milan Guenther introduces a Strategic Design approach that aligns the overarching efforts of Branding, Enterprise Architecture and Experience Design on common course to shape tomorrow’s enterprises. This book gives designers, entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders a holistic model and a comprehensive vocabulary to tackle such challenges.”

(Milan Guenther a.k.a. @eda__c)

Enterprise Content Strategy Comes Down To Governance and Workflow

Enterprises, the new hunting grounds for experience design.

“The problem today is that this bastion of the Industrial Revolution remains as businesses try to mobilize their human capital for the content demands of an always connected marketplace. Further complicating matters, workforce downsizing and the flattening of corporate hierarchies in the mid 1990’s continues to cripple many organizations in their ability to deliver the content needed to be successful in the Information Age.”

(Kris Mausser a.k.a. @krismausser ~ Follow the UX leader)