5 ms·

The UX is horrible because: a) Engineering: Nobody will rewrite 20 year old views just to improve the UX. In many cases, nobody even dares to touch the 20 year

The UX is horrible because: a) Engineering: Nobody will rewrite 20 year old views just to improve the UX. In many cases, nobody even dares to touch the 20 years old spaghetti code. b) Sales: The buyer is not the user. The buyer (playing golf with a sales rep) doesn't give a damn about the actual productivity of what he is buying. c) Management: There is a solid economical rationale in not giving a fcuk about UX. Over the years, SAP outcompeted and absorbed many competitors that were more interested in UX than golf. Golf won every single time. Nobody at the top understands or cares about UX because it does not bring more revenue, it is a cost. Source: I am an ex SAP.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
I hate how bad UX has become the standard due to management/executive negligence, and there is so little the actual users can do about it. Even small players tend to neglect UX because of the financial incentives.
- ehnto 4y ago
  I find smaller companies can have a more direct connection to their users, so the outcome is usually better UX. The disconnect from the user in enterprise software regularly results in poor UX, and the incentives to improve it just don't make their way to the people who need to hear them.
- hef19898 4y ago
  I hate it how UX is so much more important than actual funtionality. I blame Instagram, Apple and consumer apps in general for that.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    I don't see why you'd split the two. Actual good functionality is UX. Lack of good functionality implies the user has a bad experience given the intended goal. Big players tend to do the minimum, either attracting with shiny red herrings or barely doing anything at all. Both are bad UX.
    - shigawire 4y ago
      From talking to actual end users though I am convinced there is no universally good UX. Someone will not understand it no matter how perfect you think it is. Now I favor ugly but robust UX for business applications. The user doesn't have to love it, it's their job to use it. It just has to be efficient and comprehensive, not pretty
      - chopin 4y ago
        UX has onot little to do with the prettiness of a UI.
pilsetnieks 4y ago
> The buyer is not the user. The buyer (playing golf with a sales rep) doesn't give a damn about the actual productivity of what he is buying I see this trotted out a lot but are all large companies really that oblivious? Do none of the decision makers talk with the people that work for them? Surely those executives aren't so divorced from reality and common sense that they don't see a problem when people complain that things don't work or if they do, it takes an order of magnitude more time and effort? Surely there must be some other explanation for the proliferation of these systems other than "execs dumb and bad"?
- drunkpotato 4y ago
  It’s not “execs dumb and bad,” it’s that execs have different priorities than you think they do, which I think is partially dandare’s point. Executives at a large company are divorced from your reality at your level of the job. Incidentally, that’s part of the fun of working at smaller companies, though the variance is higher there’s also the potential to work more closely with good earnest executives who also want the company to succeed.
- emptyfile 4y ago
  ERP guy here >people complain that things don't work that's a problem and we're going to have to fix it >it takes an order of magnitude more time and effort that's not a problem the fact that Jane the accounting drone has to do twice the amount of work, or has to hire an intern to help her out, or even wants to quit because the job is so awful now is not a problem it's a rounding error in the overall cost of implementing an ERP system a new screen with some new data to show for the exec is worth 20 Jane's and her opinions on the new system you can't even call the new system unethical or fraudulent because 10 people other then Jane can now stop using broken excel sheets to organize their work basically Jane is collateral damage
  - radiowave 4y ago
    IT guy for ERP customer here. This sounds about right to me. In particular, it tends to partiton the organization into (A) the people whose job it is to plug away at the ERP system (orders, invoices, tickets, etc), and (B) the people who actually do whatever it is that the company does. (C) - License costs can also play into this partitioning. Then you hope (and work to ensure) that the benefit achieved for B, by having consistent org-wide information systems to work from, is enough to cover the overheads of A and C.
Gareth321 4y ago
I am so thankful to be working in an organisation which is reshaping its delivery teams into product teams. Our users are customers and if they want a better UX, they get a better UX.
orbifold 4y ago
Golf is really the key here, much nicer to play a few rounds of golf with Dietmar in his Club than think too hard about ERP processes.
shrimpx 4y ago
> Sales: The buyer is not the user. The buyer (playing golf with a sales rep) doesn't give a damn about the actual productivity of what he is buying. This is the crux of why enterprise software sucks: the user is not the buyer.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

I hate how bad UX has become the standard due to management/executive negligence, and there is so little the actual users can do about it. Even small players tend to neglect UX because of the financial incentives.

ehnto 4y ago
I find smaller companies can have a more direct connection to their users, so the outcome is usually better UX. The disconnect from the user in enterprise software regularly results in poor UX, and the incentives to improve it just don't make their way to the people who need to hear them.
hef19898 4y ago
I hate it how UX is so much more important than actual funtionality. I blame Instagram, Apple and consumer apps in general for that.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  I don't see why you'd split the two. Actual good functionality is UX. Lack of good functionality implies the user has a bad experience given the intended goal. Big players tend to do the minimum, either attracting with shiny red herrings or barely doing anything at all. Both are bad UX.
  - shigawire 4y ago
    From talking to actual end users though I am convinced there is no universally good UX. Someone will not understand it no matter how perfect you think it is. Now I favor ugly but robust UX for business applications. The user doesn't have to love it, it's their job to use it. It just has to be efficient and comprehensive, not pretty
    - chopin 4y ago
      UX has onot little to do with the prettiness of a UI.

pilsetnieks 4y ago

> The buyer is not the user. The buyer (playing golf with a sales rep) doesn't give a damn about the actual productivity of what he is buying I see this trotted out a lot but are all large companies really that oblivious? Do none of the decision makers talk with the people that work for them? Surely those executives aren't so divorced from reality and common sense that they don't see a problem when people complain that things don't work or if they do, it takes an order of magnitude more time and effort? Surely there must be some other explanation for the proliferation of these systems other than "execs dumb and bad"?

drunkpotato 4y ago
It’s not “execs dumb and bad,” it’s that execs have different priorities than you think they do, which I think is partially dandare’s point. Executives at a large company are divorced from your reality at your level of the job. Incidentally, that’s part of the fun of working at smaller companies, though the variance is higher there’s also the potential to work more closely with good earnest executives who also want the company to succeed.
emptyfile 4y ago
ERP guy here >people complain that things don't work that's a problem and we're going to have to fix it >it takes an order of magnitude more time and effort that's not a problem the fact that Jane the accounting drone has to do twice the amount of work, or has to hire an intern to help her out, or even wants to quit because the job is so awful now is not a problem it's a rounding error in the overall cost of implementing an ERP system a new screen with some new data to show for the exec is worth 20 Jane's and her opinions on the new system you can't even call the new system unethical or fraudulent because 10 people other then Jane can now stop using broken excel sheets to organize their work basically Jane is collateral damage
- radiowave 4y ago
  IT guy for ERP customer here. This sounds about right to me. In particular, it tends to partiton the organization into (A) the people whose job it is to plug away at the ERP system (orders, invoices, tickets, etc), and (B) the people who actually do whatever it is that the company does. (C) - License costs can also play into this partitioning. Then you hope (and work to ensure) that the benefit achieved for B, by having consistent org-wide information systems to work from, is enough to cover the overheads of A and C.

Gareth321 4y ago

I am so thankful to be working in an organisation which is reshaping its delivery teams into product teams. Our users are customers and if they want a better UX, they get a better UX.

orbifold 4y ago

Golf is really the key here, much nicer to play a few rounds of golf with Dietmar in his Club than think too hard about ERP processes.

shrimpx 4y ago

> Sales: The buyer is not the user. The buyer (playing golf with a sales rep) doesn't give a damn about the actual productivity of what he is buying. This is the crux of why enterprise software sucks: the user is not the buyer.