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Was a PM for a product that got criticism for its lack of density. When you are building a powerful tool for power users, you may need density and a lot of leve

Was a PM for a product that got criticism for its lack of density. When you are building a powerful tool for power users, you may need density and a lot of levers for flexibility. The consumer/enterprise distinction is huge here. As a domain expert, I was for a sparse UX that emphasized the awesome just-works power of the product. I'll never forget how one bank IT director customer said, "I just can't pay for something with this little on the screen. Can you add more stuff?" I think the key PM-fail on my part was privately scoffing to the architects afterwards that while we reduced the whites pace, we should also implement the ruby acts_as_enterprisey module to make the product seem crappier. This lack of people insight (and downside of visionary personality type attitude) pretty much summarized my limits as a PM. Real lesson for us was: enterprise users trade on demonstrating their value by performing complex work. It's job security. The stakeholders you need to close an enterprise sale include those users. If your product or UX trivializes someone's job, they are going to fight you. When they say they don't want your UX but they want your data, what they are really saying is, they don't need the problem you think you are solving solved, they are indexed on finding a way to demonstrate their value. I"m learning this the hard way now with a product that doesn't quite close the knowledge gap for non-experts, but am finding it's simplicity is undermining to the authority of experts. Solving problems and demonstrating value are very different things. It's like building a tools vs. building instruments. The UX question I need to answer is, does my product solve a problem, or help a problem solver demonstrate value? If a) then the end user is not my customer, if b) it's going to need a lot more knobs and whistles. White space isn't just white space, it represents the expression of functionality to the customer. The UX design question always takes you back to first principles, who is your customer and what do they need?

mruts 8y ago
In my comment about the Bloomberg Terminal, I talked about how it, and any good software (also like Vim and Emacs) makes users feel like a wizard. People, especially enterprise banking users, want to feel powerful when using an app. Like it’s an extension of their own mind and body. If you make something that is valuable but doesn’t give the users a power trip, it will fail. This is just how people work.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  It's not just about power trips. It's about utility and context. Vim and Emacs give you actual power, not just the feeling of it. Vim's "shortcut grammar" and Emacs' deep interoperability are a huge productivity multiplier for any imaginable task that you can reduce to manipulating text. Information density is about providing context. A good example here would be Google Maps. The app is optimized to be used as a point-to-point navigation tool, but some design decisions - like inconsistent showing of street names - make it pretty much useless as a map. Your UI design may be leading the user down a prescribed path, but if you make it show the minimal amount of information necessary on that path, the UI automatically becomes useless for all other related paths.
stormking 8y ago
> If your product or UX trivializes someone's job, they are going to fight you. I find that kind of arrogant. In a lot of cases, the UX designers simply underestimate the real complexity of a task.
- motohagiography 8y ago
  Reducing a complex task that takes 10 fingers and gratifying thought to a single button choice architecture is trivializing. Recognizing that interests are rarely articulated is the real art.
  - stormking 8y ago
    > Reducing a complex task that takes 10 fingers and gratifying thought to a single button choice architecture is trivializing. Not if that works only in the 90% of usual cases and working the non-usual ones is not possible, anymore, after the change.

mruts 8y ago

In my comment about the Bloomberg Terminal, I talked about how it, and any good software (also like Vim and Emacs) makes users feel like a wizard. People, especially enterprise banking users, want to feel powerful when using an app. Like it’s an extension of their own mind and body. If you make something that is valuable but doesn’t give the users a power trip, it will fail. This is just how people work.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
It's not just about power trips. It's about utility and context. Vim and Emacs give you actual power, not just the feeling of it. Vim's "shortcut grammar" and Emacs' deep interoperability are a huge productivity multiplier for any imaginable task that you can reduce to manipulating text. Information density is about providing context. A good example here would be Google Maps. The app is optimized to be used as a point-to-point navigation tool, but some design decisions - like inconsistent showing of street names - make it pretty much useless as a map. Your UI design may be leading the user down a prescribed path, but if you make it show the minimal amount of information necessary on that path, the UI automatically becomes useless for all other related paths.

stormking 8y ago

> If your product or UX trivializes someone's job, they are going to fight you. I find that kind of arrogant. In a lot of cases, the UX designers simply underestimate the real complexity of a task.

motohagiography 8y ago
Reducing a complex task that takes 10 fingers and gratifying thought to a single button choice architecture is trivializing. Recognizing that interests are rarely articulated is the real art.
- stormking 8y ago
  > Reducing a complex task that takes 10 fingers and gratifying thought to a single button choice architecture is trivializing. Not if that works only in the 90% of usual cases and working the non-usual ones is not possible, anymore, after the change.