Ten reasons you should think about designing for Enterprise Applications.

Why Enterprise design is important, and why you should care.

Photo by Sean Pollack

How many hours do you work a week?

For most of us it is 40–50 hours a week. And…if you take the 168 hours per week, minus 49 hours for sleeping 7 hours a day, that means about a third of our waking hours are at work, so work is pretty important.

While I realize I’m not the first to make these calculations, the point is many of us do use software in order perform our job. In a 2016 study by the Brookings institute, they found that 90% of all jobs require us to use some sort of software to perform our jobs. And that number is constantly increasing. How well we do at that job, how much we are able to accomplish, and how we feel about our job, is tied to the software we use. It either enhances or detracts from our capabilities. So, as a result, how we feel about our experience of using software, tools and systems, can have a big impact on our lives, and those who work for the companies we serve.

There is new research available that shows that the ability to be able to use technology is related to overall job satisfaction. For instance, in a study done by Aruba (a HP company), found that employees who work in fully-enabled digital workplaces where new workplace technologies are in widespread use are 51 percent more likely to have strong job satisfaction, and 43 percent more likely to be positive about their work-life balance than ‘Digital Laggards’ who have less access to workplace technology.

The inevitable consumerization of Enterprise technology

“The consumerization of the workplace is a very real movement. Employees are consumers and we bring consumer expectations with us to work,” says Janice Le, chief marketer for Aruba. “The workplace is getting smarter and therefore, employees are working smarter.”

People who work also use consumer apps, and are used to the great design and usability of apps by tech giants like Amazon, Apple and Google. Workers use these apps at home and then bring this bias to the office, expecting the company CRM to be as beautiful and well organized as the Netflix app they are using at home. What we find is there is a big disconnect between the two, and a lot of this has to do with the process of the design and build of these applications, which can lead to unsuccessful launches and adoption of the software. For the past 40+ years, the way Enterprise systems were built was to collect requirements, design, document, and build. Over the past few years, we have realized how this methodology misses the opportunity to prototype and iterate, as well as deeply understand the human element, which leads to successful product design. BTW Waterfall is from 1956 guys…#justsaying.

According to a 2017 McKinsey report on the success of enterprise software implementation:

“…too often, this team does not include people whose day to day responsibilities involve the use of the software. The result is a technology that only accomplishes some of the goals that the team using the product needs to be successful.

As UX Designers, it is our job to make these tools usable so that people can get their jobs done, minimize errors, reduce repetitive behavior, as well as reduce overall cognitive load. We understand the people, their environment, the business goals, and restrictions, then we build stuff and watch them use it and iterate.

It’s a pretty simple but powerful concept.

With movements like Lean UX, Design Thinking, Agile and the like, we have matured the process of creating the smallest testable item, testing it and iterating, until we have something “good enough.” However, these methodologies are just now starting to make their way into Enterprise, and it’s an exciting time as the industry realizes the need for designers.

Workers use these apps at home and then bring this bias to the office, expecting the company CRM to be as beautiful and well organized as the Netflix app they are using at home.

Change is on the horizon…

As of late, large companies are starting to realize that a big part of the “Customer Experience” depends on the “Internal Experience…” and they are putting money against it.

How do you expect a Sales/Customer Service/Processing rep to do her job well and effectively, without usable tools to assist them?

Seeing as workplace information systems can be extremely complex, we are in need of a new breed of designer to help sort them out. The clock is finally running down on the lifespan of the outdated applications that run large companies. As a result, there is a need for a new breed of software designer required to reimagine these systems.

They will need to be doing a better job of understanding the people and context, which then lead to satisfaction and adoption of the software. In “Corporate America,” we now find our selves in the middle of a glut of outdated applications, with massive technical debt, and user complexity, which are in desperate need of updating. It will no longer be good enough to simply “add a field here” or “add a button” there. We need a way of handling these issues that borrows from the past, and incorporates the future into their development and design.

While there is a large amount of designers entering the UX field, (adding an additional 10% over the next five years), I firmly believe some of those UX jobs will be in addressing workplace design.

And why not? The area is of prime importance to business, and of the workers themselves. In my experience, Enterprise UX is where Consumer UX was 5 to 10 years ago. It is still not considered a “revenue driver” and more of a cost center than a profit center for the most part. It is traditionally considered an “efficiency” play versus a bottom line necessity. However, with companies like Salesforce and Zendesk creating enterprise apps that are easy to use and can help companies be more productive to improve the bottom line, company leaders are now at a place that they need to improve the experience meaningfully for the people working at these companies.

photo by Tim van der Kuip

Ten reasons why work on Enterprise UX matters

Here are 10 reasons that I switched my career to focus the Enterprise side of design and have not looked back:

1. Projects are complex and require collaboration across disciplines. This complexity is fun and challenging. You will need to decode business rules, unpack operations, and work with several teams on execution. The applications often have many user groups and complex tasks, which can make it a fun design challenge to create a usable experience for everyone.
2. It will challenge your IA skills. You will really need to understand data relationships in order to do Enterprise software. There is a TON of data… and this data will need to make sense to humans at the end of it. This means object and attribute modeling chops, as well as an understanding of data technologies, what data is available, and what is not as well as the reliability of the data. You will be a data ninja and you will love it!!
3. It will help you learn how to think flexibly no matter what you design. In an Enterprise system, you cannot create “snowflake functionality” — tailor made flow or patterns for every flow. There is so much to be done, and so many micro interactions, that you will need to develop the ability to see how a pattern or module can be used in multiple contexts and as flexibly as possible. A lot of times it’s not ideal for every individual situation, but that’s OK. You will learn to leverage scale. Take a look at the Salesforce Lightning Design System and see how they use the modules, sections and components and reuse them.
4. It will challenge your service design skills. Enterprise Software is almost always integrated with a service that will integrate across the operation. This means several groups will be involved with different needs, and it will be your job to unpack the operations visualize them, and see how the application can support those operations.
5. You get to help the people you directly work with and see their satisfaction. I think one of the best parts of my job is when we create something, and see people using it. With consumer apps, there is always a layer of abstraction between the business and the customer. The experience improving a conversion or improving engagement can be satisfying, but to me it often feels more like playing a video game or a puzzle, where you trying to rack up points versus tangible improvement in people’s lives. With Enterprise , you get to interact with the people who use it every day (unless you work for a software company that makes software for purchase or SaaS). And you get to know them, and understand their issues, and their needs. And it drives you to create something better for them. They are the people on your team. I often feel a deep sense of responsibility to be their voice when designing tools for them.
6. You have a large pool of users at your disposal to test and iterate with. Honestly, this is one of my favorites things about working on internal software. If you are working on a user test for consumer software, it can be time consuming to get users, collect feedback, recruiting and scheduling, and getting payment approved. With internal users, you can iterate many times over, and getting real users to test or give you feedback at any time. It’s priceless! I just walk down the hall, grab someone and start asking questions.
7. There are not a lot of us out there… While I can’t seem to find data on this, anecdotally, I keep running into hiring managers in Los Angeles that require Enterprise or SaaS experience, and they are having trouble filling those positions. I’ve also noticed an increase in job listings for Enterprise UX designers. As there are more and more apps being created, and internal teams get built out, the need will be greater. Furthermore, as UX and Service design grow, I can very well see an opportunity to use our skills on an “Internal Experience” team, which integrates with culture, HR and Technology to take care of our teammates holistically.
8. …but there is a ton of need. Honestly, most large scale Enterprise apps suck. Buggy. Hard to use. Repetitive. Tons of data in various places. There is so much fruit on the ground, that you can make tangible improvements pretty quickly. A lot of apps like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, are typically custom implementations, however those applications may not be configured right based on the user needs. It is a lot of work to understand and design for a system holistically plus have the discipline to keep it well organized.
9. Enterprise software has the capability to really help people do great things. When scientists do research, they use software. When Space-X astronauts launched into space, there was software. When Amazon delivers your fuzzy bunny slippers in two days, it uses software. And someone designed it. While it is very important to generate revenue to help companies keep afloat and use it to fuel important world changing projects, the world changing projects happen by giving our workforce the right tools to make the change. Whether its visualizing data, monitoring a rocket, or helping a customer spend 5 minutes less on the phone, this efficiency is where we make a difference as designers, which means you can be part of that cool stuff!
10. You can become the next unicorn. While the typical UX unicorn is UX/VizD/Front End Dev. There is a new type of unicorn = Product/UX/Business Analyst. As you get deeper into Enterprise UX, you find that those disciplines start to merge, and you very well could find yourself in a position to handle them all. Which can mean you have more control on the projects, and you can define and design a solution.