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It's also because it's enterprise software. Which actually isn't software, it's more of a platform. You have to do so much implementation detail that the GUI is

It's also because it's enterprise software. Which actually isn't software, it's more of a platform. You have to do so much implementation detail that the GUI is just the result of some form-builder type module. Everything I've ever encountered that was enterprise software, felt like it's GUI was not made by humans at all. I don't actually know how they get built but they're almost never optimized for humans or the usage they're meant to benefit.

badpun 4y ago
Nobody wants to pay for better GUIs in enterprise software, so no vendor puts any attention into them. An Enterprise Architect explicitly explained to me (when I was raising a point of choosing a software package that had much better UI) that good UX is a small factor and company (a bank in that case) would rather buy cheaper software and just have its workers suffer more, because it's deemed more cost-effective.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The definition of enterprise software is “the customer is not the user”. You don’t have to make the user happy, just the CxO.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    And this is why the most polished part of most enterprise software packages is the dashboard/reporting function, the only part the C-levels might actually touch themselves.
  - asvitkine 4y ago
    Wouldn't productivity from better UI be something measurable that can be then advertised by vendors and extrapolated into savings for the customer? I feel like that could be a pretty compelling selling point to the CxOs.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      How do you measure how much MS Teams sucks compared to Slack? All the CTO knows is that they have an enterprise license for Office along with Teams and the salesperson they talked to showed them how great it integrates with the rest of the suite. In the EHR space, all the CMO (chief medical officer) cares about is it helps keep them in compliance. Why should they care if it’s hard for their office staff to use?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- twobitshifter 4y ago
  This is true, look at time collection software or just about anything written with SAP.
- jimbokun 4y ago
  My company used UX as a competitive differentiator for Enterprise Software in the healthcare sector. It's so neglected by most software development companies, we were able to get the doctors as our champions to convince the bean counters to consider our products.
  - bkuehl 4y ago
    We did the same thing in the healthcare sector, but for safety event reporting! It's not like we even did anything groundbreaking with UX. One was just making it so it's easy to fill out a form quickly. You don't even have to touch the mouse if you don't want to. Users love it and it's increased event reporting by a good percentage.
StillBored 4y ago
I've not done that kind of SW in a long time, and never with someone else's platform. But that said, the reporting application I was describing above was a platform in the same sense. It was largely an engine for generating the forms being filled out by the end users. Which is why it there was so much effort doing usability stuff, because the underlying form descriptions had to have tons of optimization flags for doing things like list sorting common items to the top N items of drop-downs, or moving fields around in the form to match the ways the users thought about filling out the forms. So there were two sides, the engine optimizations to assure things like tab orders on a form, and the was the actually writing the form descriptions. In the first couple organizations that adopted it I wrote the forms and the engine in parallel adding feature flags/controls as needed to support the desired UI outcomes. Later after I quit, the lady who wrote much of the RFP responses started writing the actual form descriptions because it was just as easy as drawing them out in the (visio?) plugin she was using with MS word and doing screen captures for the RFP. Then I guess because she knew how to do it, was doing the "tuning" as well.

badpun 4y ago

Nobody wants to pay for better GUIs in enterprise software, so no vendor puts any attention into them. An Enterprise Architect explicitly explained to me (when I was raising a point of choosing a software package that had much better UI) that good UX is a small factor and company (a bank in that case) would rather buy cheaper software and just have its workers suffer more, because it's deemed more cost-effective.

scarface74 4y ago
The definition of enterprise software is “the customer is not the user”. You don’t have to make the user happy, just the CxO.
- bombcar 4y ago
  And this is why the most polished part of most enterprise software packages is the dashboard/reporting function, the only part the C-levels might actually touch themselves.
- asvitkine 4y ago
  Wouldn't productivity from better UI be something measurable that can be then advertised by vendors and extrapolated into savings for the customer? I feel like that could be a pretty compelling selling point to the CxOs.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    How do you measure how much MS Teams sucks compared to Slack? All the CTO knows is that they have an enterprise license for Office along with Teams and the salesperson they talked to showed them how great it integrates with the rest of the suite. In the EHR space, all the CMO (chief medical officer) cares about is it helps keep them in compliance. Why should they care if it’s hard for their office staff to use?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
twobitshifter 4y ago
This is true, look at time collection software or just about anything written with SAP.
jimbokun 4y ago
My company used UX as a competitive differentiator for Enterprise Software in the healthcare sector. It's so neglected by most software development companies, we were able to get the doctors as our champions to convince the bean counters to consider our products.
- bkuehl 4y ago
  We did the same thing in the healthcare sector, but for safety event reporting! It's not like we even did anything groundbreaking with UX. One was just making it so it's easy to fill out a form quickly. You don't even have to touch the mouse if you don't want to. Users love it and it's increased event reporting by a good percentage.

StillBored 4y ago

I've not done that kind of SW in a long time, and never with someone else's platform. But that said, the reporting application I was describing above was a platform in the same sense. It was largely an engine for generating the forms being filled out by the end users. Which is why it there was so much effort doing usability stuff, because the underlying form descriptions had to have tons of optimization flags for doing things like list sorting common items to the top N items of drop-downs, or moving fields around in the form to match the ways the users thought about filling out the forms. So there were two sides, the engine optimizations to assure things like tab orders on a form, and the was the actually writing the form descriptions. In the first couple organizations that adopted it I wrote the forms and the engine in parallel adding feature flags/controls as needed to support the desired UI outcomes. Later after I quit, the lady who wrote much of the RFP responses started writing the actual form descriptions because it was just as easy as drawing them out in the (visio?) plugin she was using with MS word and doing screen captures for the RFP. Then I guess because she knew how to do it, was doing the "tuning" as well.