Article Idea:
Enterprise Usability
suggested by Mike Padilla on 2006/09/15
As user experience designers in an enterprise, we find ourselves knee deep in pixels. Should we use a dropdown element or a set of radio buttons? 10pt or 12pt size font? A div or a span? While such design considerations are necessary and important, we “underlook” the huge user experience opportunities outside the webpage, outside the website, outside the browser.
There’s a whole set of enterprise usability issues that we can address to considerably improve ease-of-use for our users. We should be championing the merits of large monitors, developing easy-to-remember domain naming conventions for all websites our colleagues access, pushing for desktop search, and decrying unrealistically complex password policies while offering password management solutions.
Macro usability opportunities promise compounded inter-application improved efficiencies. It’s time for user experience professionals to start making things easier in a big way.
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Patrick C. Walsh
31 Reputation points
Posted 2006/09/19 @ 05:28AM with
I feel that IA as practiced for the internet does not altogether map against what is required for Enterprise Inforamtion Achitecture (EIA). Perhaps EIA ought to become a specialty of its own?
Madonnalisa G. Chan
3 Reputation points
Posted 2006/09/22 @ 13:11PM with
I agree with Patrick. Somehow the EIA has a certain need that involves referential and transactoinal information that isn’t just an intranet of what departments do but how different departments interact and transact like mini-businesses. I’m wondering if ther eis some way to look beyond the pixels and review the core objectives/business strategy for an EIA.