I wrote recently about designing and developing user interface. It reminded me a window I was developing few years ago. The window is example of problems you can face when you don’t have your GUI well-designed.
Through all the years a system (ERP system) was developed, the window was growing, developers were adding new features, controls, tabs etc. So far, so good. Generally GUI of the system was based on a set of templates – adding a new feature to the template allowed to easily turn it on within the window. Templates were growing; developers were adding new features and controls, which were activated on the window. Every of these two processes was under control of a single person – either a “window developer” or a “template developer”. Unfortunately, without comprehensive GUI design for the whole system these two processes could end up with conflict. And that’s exactly what happened.
Back then the window covered two panels (one with a tree another with a simple list) with checks in every row, edit operations, bunch of checkboxes, edits, drop-downs and buttons under the list and something we called a locator. The locator was simple and powerful idea, but it was killer for no-mouse navigation also. When focus was anywhere on the list user could start typing, and it applied to auto-filter on default column. There was of course some latency to prevent applying the filter after every single keystroke. Our users loved that. The issue was the spacebar users wanted (what a surprise) to use in the locator we reserved earlier for checking/unchecking checkboxes on the list. What a pity.
We didn’t really think it out during design. I think no one even realized that it could be an issue there. The whole “GUI design” thing was definitely underestimated. Eventually we ended up with some crappy solution that changed old well-known feature, what brought a lot of complains from our customers. I still heard them months later when I left development and leaded a support team.
The story tells how important the GUI design is. Remember that even if you start just small application – you never know how big it can grow.
For those who are curious the window currently (it’s a couple of years older now) looks like this:
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Pawel,
good series of posts on UI design. Basically, UI design goes down to making the much-needed obvious and easy to see IMHO:
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com/2006/08/04/on-making-the-much-needed-obvious/
Best regards
Tam Hanna
It’s generalization but when talking about usability that’s very true. As you write tweaking UI can significantly change the way the users work.
There’s some more however – UI should be not only usable, but also nice. Good example is sytem I wrote about here – we did some work on usability, but UI still looked ugly. That doesn’t help to sell.