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I have a contrarian view that this is not a UI design issue - instead a user training issue. Oracle and bad UI design often comes up on HN and every time the d

I have a contrarian view that this is not a UI design issue - instead a user training issue. Oracle and bad UI design often comes up on HN and every time the debate is that Oracle software is very bad and ripe for disruption. However, most of what Oracle has built or bought is complex because the purposes it serves is complex. You cannot expect a user to just sit in front of this screen (or any other Oracle screen for that matter) and figure it out. There is a lot of tribal knowledge involved and most of the times it is a user training issue. If the user and his manager was unsure, they should have tested it on a dev system or with a smaller amount. Blaming bad software is easy. But having worked with complex ERP systems for more than a decade, I can easily say tat most of these systems are designed keeping user feedback in mind. In fact a lot of modules that Oracle sells were systems that their users built as add-ons to Oracle and were finally embraced by Oracle. Everybody blames bad ERP systems from Oracle (PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Oracle EBS) and SAP. Yet noboody is building competing systems at a mass scale. Because they are complex and needs lots of integrations. That is why, you see lots of small business ERP systems but very few complex full scale ERP systems -the kind Oracle dabbles in.

rootusrootus 6y ago
I tend to agree. It seems likely that Citibank handles transactions of this magnitude with some regularity, so even if the UI is crappy I would expect the employees involved are used to the quirks and know how to work with the system. Given that my company uses similar shitty Oracle software, I'm sympathetic, but we have people at the company whose only job is to work with this software and make sure things are done correctly.
jariel 6y ago
Yes, for these things you can expect to figure it out - and/or it should be obvious what you are doing. There's no need for that level of ambiguity. You're dealing with large sums of money. The parameters described in the video are superlatively ridiculous. It's their fault. FYI verticals of ERP are usually not that complex. And there are other reasons people don't compete, it's because of the inherent flexibility needed in these systems and their vast incumbency.

rootusrootus 6y ago

I tend to agree. It seems likely that Citibank handles transactions of this magnitude with some regularity, so even if the UI is crappy I would expect the employees involved are used to the quirks and know how to work with the system. Given that my company uses similar shitty Oracle software, I'm sympathetic, but we have people at the company whose only job is to work with this software and make sure things are done correctly.

jariel 6y ago

Yes, for these things you can expect to figure it out - and/or it should be obvious what you are doing. There's no need for that level of ambiguity. You're dealing with large sums of money. The parameters described in the video are superlatively ridiculous. It's their fault. FYI verticals of ERP are usually not that complex. And there are other reasons people don't compete, it's because of the inherent flexibility needed in these systems and their vast incumbency.