4 ms·

I have 1 rule: If you're building an app that people use for work and open every day, you should make it dense. People want to get work done, fast. They don't

I have 1 rule: If you're building an app that people use for work and open every day, you should make it dense. People want to get work done, fast. They don't care about how pretty it is. Otherwise, you should make it sparse.

duxup 2y ago
Generally that's my experience as well. Business apps that my customers want, crazy dense. Some of these I look at and I'm "man this is a lot of stuff" but ... then you get used to it and it works.
delichon 2y ago
Two basic strategies: Design for the median user or the least common denominator. At web scale we are often driven to least common denominator out of self defense, because lower power users squawk more about confusion than median power users do about efficiency.
- Lutzb 2y ago
  I think about this quite often when creating new applications. Four hypotheses why standard users are often the primary target of design: (1) Power Users are louder but mostly ignored due statistically being not relevant. (2) During design sessions the teams empathize with a standard user, not the power user. I've seen this pattern over and over again. (3) Current web technology makes it difficult to build high density UIs that work well. (4) Mobile UI first. If it works on mobile, we can just use the same UI for the web. All this leads to another problem: Your standard users never become high power users on your platform. In the end platforms become interchangeable.
  - rocqua 2y ago
    I think its all about new user acquisition. If your design is very dense, then a new user will be scared away. If you NEED growth, you can't afford to scare away users. You need to cater to them as much as possible. You need them to tell their friends "yes its very easy to get started with". It leaves no room for a learning curve. And this is also something we have come to expect. So anything with a learning curve feels like a massive investment, and we feel dumb whilst using it and not knowing how, because everything else is so dumbed down that it is instantly intuitive. This has made computers and software very popular and widely used. And I am happy for my (grand) parents that they can use these things now. But it has come at a great cost of productivity for everyone. Because even the designs where we would have invested the learning time to get faster, can't invest that time, because the interface is so simple it becomes limiting.
  - Nextgrid 2y ago
    > Your standard users never become high power users on your platform This is considered good, because if they become power users and get their stuff done faster they'll "engage" less and we can't have that. Remember that today's career incentives in tech companies means tech is primarily there to drive "engagement" and is not there to solve the user's problem.
- Jerrrrry 2y ago
  >Design for the median user or the least common denominator. Design for the least, compare against average, and don't cap the best, use those agents as immediate beta-user -> quality/dev feedbook loop, dog-fooding user requirements as a fundamental base, and don't let perfection impede progress.
skydhash 2y ago
Dense every time! Youtube and Twitter’s UI’s are so sparse they display the same amount of information on my phone (6.1”) and my desktop (24”). And they waste vertical space like their designer only use square/vertical monitors. I’m clicking with a mouse, I’m not touching the screen with a brick.
jamil7 2y ago
Yeah, some tools are built for complex, niche workflows and as a result need to have information and control density. You can't design away the learning curve in these cases and probably shouldn't try to or you'll harm the pro-end of the userbase's UX, meaning someone can't do their job quickly/efficiently enough.
Ensorceled 2y ago
My last gig I built a campaign management interface. The designer kept coming back with something that showed 10 lines per "screen". I kept showing them the excel spreadsheet we were replacing that had been configured with 8pt fonts so it showed dozens per screen. It's really hard to switch design patterns from consumer/prosumer to professional. Knowledge workers who "live" in the tool want as much data as possible, as quickly as possible.
- stevage 2y ago
  Yep. I really can't stand tools made for professionals that paginate lists to 10 items at once. Even my invoicing software does this. I have 200 invoices in the system and can only see 10 at once? Maddening.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    These days, only torrent sites (private) seem to have good UIs.
ARandumGuy 2y ago
This is the reason I don't envy the UI designers on products like MS Office. There are professionals who use products in the MS Office suite every day, but there are other users who only need to create the occasional spreadsheet or powerpoint. Even if you think Microsoft has done a poor job with the UI, one can't deny that reconciling the differences between casual and power users is a difficult job.
- smegger001 2y ago
  This is why Microsoft used to have multiple office suites, there was microsoft office which was everything and the kitchen sink, then you had Microsoft Works which was a stripped down simpler office suite, then you had wordpad for when you need something more than note pad but not a full office suite.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    Wordpad was good. I don’t remember the full feature suite, but Microsoft could have expanded on it to have something like Google Docs, but native.
- moi2388 2y ago
  They could just have a “quick edit” mode, a “read” mode and a “power user mode”. But that means not having your intern pump out that single electron design so it’ll never happen
  - enriquto 2y ago
    > They could just have a “quick edit” mode, a “read” mode and a “power user mode”. Would the density of these interfaces increase or decrease? An actual power-user would master all the shortcuts and would prefer a zen experience where only the document is visible, with no widgets whatsoever.
    - djeastm 2y ago
      Only if they're keyboard-focused. There are power-users who still prefer mouse.
eitally 2y ago
I'm 100% with you. I ran an Enterprise Apps org within corporate IT for about 15 years and the #1 rule is that the tools must be functional. Unfortunately, this frequently results in technical debt because "functional" often means "complies with whatever business logic the current sponsoring org (Finance, HR, Supply Chain/Procurement, Ops, etc) wants that week, and the result of that is that many internal enterprise apps get wholesale rewrites every 4-5 years because it's easier than refactoring. This set of phenomena is completely foreign to SWEs and PMs who have only ever worked in big tech, on consumer products especially, and the reality is that while some engineering teams in some companies are sometimes doing hard and creative work, the majority of big tech SWEs "moving protobufs" is much easier and less complicated than the kind of crap faced by enterprise IT.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

duxup 2y ago

Generally that's my experience as well. Business apps that my customers want, crazy dense. Some of these I look at and I'm "man this is a lot of stuff" but ... then you get used to it and it works.

delichon 2y ago

Two basic strategies: Design for the median user or the least common denominator. At web scale we are often driven to least common denominator out of self defense, because lower power users squawk more about confusion than median power users do about efficiency.

Lutzb 2y ago
I think about this quite often when creating new applications. Four hypotheses why standard users are often the primary target of design: (1) Power Users are louder but mostly ignored due statistically being not relevant. (2) During design sessions the teams empathize with a standard user, not the power user. I've seen this pattern over and over again. (3) Current web technology makes it difficult to build high density UIs that work well. (4) Mobile UI first. If it works on mobile, we can just use the same UI for the web. All this leads to another problem: Your standard users never become high power users on your platform. In the end platforms become interchangeable.
- rocqua 2y ago
  I think its all about new user acquisition. If your design is very dense, then a new user will be scared away. If you NEED growth, you can't afford to scare away users. You need to cater to them as much as possible. You need them to tell their friends "yes its very easy to get started with". It leaves no room for a learning curve. And this is also something we have come to expect. So anything with a learning curve feels like a massive investment, and we feel dumb whilst using it and not knowing how, because everything else is so dumbed down that it is instantly intuitive. This has made computers and software very popular and widely used. And I am happy for my (grand) parents that they can use these things now. But it has come at a great cost of productivity for everyone. Because even the designs where we would have invested the learning time to get faster, can't invest that time, because the interface is so simple it becomes limiting.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  > Your standard users never become high power users on your platform This is considered good, because if they become power users and get their stuff done faster they'll "engage" less and we can't have that. Remember that today's career incentives in tech companies means tech is primarily there to drive "engagement" and is not there to solve the user's problem.
Jerrrrry 2y ago
>Design for the median user or the least common denominator. Design for the least, compare against average, and don't cap the best, use those agents as immediate beta-user -> quality/dev feedbook loop, dog-fooding user requirements as a fundamental base, and don't let perfection impede progress.

skydhash 2y ago

Dense every time! Youtube and Twitter’s UI’s are so sparse they display the same amount of information on my phone (6.1”) and my desktop (24”). And they waste vertical space like their designer only use square/vertical monitors. I’m clicking with a mouse, I’m not touching the screen with a brick.

jamil7 2y ago

Yeah, some tools are built for complex, niche workflows and as a result need to have information and control density. You can't design away the learning curve in these cases and probably shouldn't try to or you'll harm the pro-end of the userbase's UX, meaning someone can't do their job quickly/efficiently enough.

Ensorceled 2y ago

My last gig I built a campaign management interface. The designer kept coming back with something that showed 10 lines per "screen". I kept showing them the excel spreadsheet we were replacing that had been configured with 8pt fonts so it showed dozens per screen. It's really hard to switch design patterns from consumer/prosumer to professional. Knowledge workers who "live" in the tool want as much data as possible, as quickly as possible.

stevage 2y ago
Yep. I really can't stand tools made for professionals that paginate lists to 10 items at once. Even my invoicing software does this. I have 200 invoices in the system and can only see 10 at once? Maddening.
- skydhash 2y ago
  These days, only torrent sites (private) seem to have good UIs.

ARandumGuy 2y ago

This is the reason I don't envy the UI designers on products like MS Office. There are professionals who use products in the MS Office suite every day, but there are other users who only need to create the occasional spreadsheet or powerpoint. Even if you think Microsoft has done a poor job with the UI, one can't deny that reconciling the differences between casual and power users is a difficult job.

smegger001 2y ago
This is why Microsoft used to have multiple office suites, there was microsoft office which was everything and the kitchen sink, then you had Microsoft Works which was a stripped down simpler office suite, then you had wordpad for when you need something more than note pad but not a full office suite.
- skydhash 2y ago
  Wordpad was good. I don’t remember the full feature suite, but Microsoft could have expanded on it to have something like Google Docs, but native.
moi2388 2y ago
They could just have a “quick edit” mode, a “read” mode and a “power user mode”. But that means not having your intern pump out that single electron design so it’ll never happen
- enriquto 2y ago
  > They could just have a “quick edit” mode, a “read” mode and a “power user mode”. Would the density of these interfaces increase or decrease? An actual power-user would master all the shortcuts and would prefer a zen experience where only the document is visible, with no widgets whatsoever.
  - djeastm 2y ago
    Only if they're keyboard-focused. There are power-users who still prefer mouse.

eitally 2y ago

I'm 100% with you. I ran an Enterprise Apps org within corporate IT for about 15 years and the #1 rule is that the tools must be functional. Unfortunately, this frequently results in technical debt because "functional" often means "complies with whatever business logic the current sponsoring org (Finance, HR, Supply Chain/Procurement, Ops, etc) wants that week, and the result of that is that many internal enterprise apps get wholesale rewrites every 4-5 years because it's easier than refactoring. This set of phenomena is completely foreign to SWEs and PMs who have only ever worked in big tech, on consumer products especially, and the reality is that while some engineering teams in some companies are sometimes doing hard and creative work, the majority of big tech SWEs "moving protobufs" is much easier and less complicated than the kind of crap faced by enterprise IT.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]