portal/intranet advice 1111 Responses

Last post: 3 months, 4 weeks ago | Thread started: Jul 25, 08, 10:54 a.m.

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• redant

  

  I work with developers who worked very hard to build this application for internal use. It's jus that I look at it and think it is really ugly, needs improvement, usability. How do I explain this to them. I know they put alot of work in creating it before I came. What can I do? Someone thought bolding the "quick links" and making the grey bar thicker would make the area pop i assume. I think I can be very negative but I don't like it. How can I convince them I can make it better? The one complaint is that people do not utilize certain sections, but because the certain people are not technically savvy enough. Do you guys think a better design would influence more use by employees? How do I prove this? Anyone have any experience with this? Any help is appreciated.

  Jul 25, 08, 10:54 a.m. – Permalink

• sherman

  Oh my goodness that does need some work. Seems like a good opportunity to explain usability standards and how a quality interface design will enhance the employees experience and actually make them want to use it.

  Better design would certainly influence more use by the employees. Use this as a start off point and ask the employees for feedback.

  A book im readying on the subject:

  Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action
  Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge

  Maybe show them some examples of other well planned/designed interfaces.

  • I readying books :P– sherman1/2

    :0)– redant2/2

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 10:59 a.m. – Permalink

• VectorMasked

  The menu is quite bad. Those cells need to be larger, coz it's way too tight and hard to read with that font.

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11 a.m. – Permalink

• sherman

  There are lots of issues, but now thats it functioning it would be a good time to sit down with them and discuss ideas to make it better. Although it would have been easier to do that in the first place, but better late then never.

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11:05 a.m. – Permalink

• redant

  well im going to check out those books. The menu prob wont change. I'm wanting to make it easy for them. I'm frustrated because they only care about ie well mostly as long as it functions in other browsers. I jus dont know how to present this and convince them but I'm going to check out those books.

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11:07 a.m. – Permalink

• sherman

  Here are a few apps to look at for ideas:

  http://getharvest.com/
  http://www.freshbooks.com
  http://www.basecamphq.com/tour

  There are plenty of well designed apps out there. Just pick a few and compare what you like about them.

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11:10 a.m. – Permalink

• sherman

  http://www.nngroup.com/reports/i…

  This report sounds interesting.

  • it does but i dont want to buy– redant

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11:10 a.m. – Permalink

• redant

  yea im going to work on some layouts i have already and ill cont and i think theyll accept it but i just cant discuss redesign with them because we disagree so I'll show them simple redesign

  • a simple redesign i mean
    – redant

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11:11 a.m. – Permalink

• stupidresponse

  well hopefully they separated the presentation from the backend logic and it should be just a simple matter of a new template and a bit of css. if that's not the case, they are bad developers on top of being bad designers

  • i think they did– redant

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 11:18 a.m. – Permalink

• gung_hoek

  maybe you can win them over with numbers. a clear arrangement may save the users time for orienting themselves. even if its only a second per scenario/page, the time adds up. the more people use the application, the more $ the firm will save. maybe they will buy that a sympathetic appearance strengthens the acceptance of the tool.

  when i´m in this kind of situation, i prepare a couple of concepts to clear them with the developers directly, trying to find a compromise before presenting a final solution. they know when it gets to painful on the workload and like it when they´re included early on. usually there will be a concensus, if i have a case better than "but that looks horrible".

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 12:42 p.m. – Permalink

• redant

  yea im def thinking that i need to present something gung and not jus speak my mind. thanks boys n girls at least I'm done for the day :-)

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 1:04 p.m. – Permalink

• madirish

  have them read (and *actually* read it) anything by:
  - Adaptive Path
  - Jeffrey Veen (http://www.veen.com/jeff/index…
  - Google Analytics/MediaMappr team

  

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  Dog-earJul 25, 08, 1:08 p.m. – Permalink