Stop! Do not start your application revamp project until you read this…

It doesn’t matter if you’re managing a closed system desktop application or a SaaS web application, if people can’t use your system effectively, it will fail. As a product manager, this can be a daunting prospect and big responsibility to bear.

Managing a system that’s grown organically and has become bloated leads to a whole host of problems. Badly organised data, design inconsistencies and confusing messaging makes for a terrible user experience.

Why is it so important to get your application right?

Well, not only will an ineffective system directly affect the efficiency of your business and impact your overhead costs, if selling your application is core to your business model, you’ll be losing market share to a competitor’s more user-centric product. The longer you wait to take action, the more users you’ll be haemorrhaging and the fewer new users you’ll attract.

Evolving your application — what does it mean for the underlying tech?

Making significant changes to an application has many degrees of complexity, but the underlying system technology needn’t be one of them. There’s so much that can be done to the structure, content, messaging and usability without the need to necessarily change the back-end technology infrastructure. When you can still make a massive impact without disrupting your legacy systems, it’s a no-brainer to invest in improving the user experience.

Why creating closed-system applications are so much more complex than websites:

Managing a closed-system application, whether an installed software or a web based app, is hugely different to designing and building a typical website, and that’s because of who uses it and how they use it.

When it comes to understanding and improving the users’ experience of a complex system, it takes the right level of knowledge and skills to be able to plan and implement a comprehensive solution that works.

Some important characteristics of a closed-system application and its users:

• Due to their complexity and nature, system applications often incorporate an on-boarding process, user training and support mechanisms. Therefore while intuitiveness is as important to users as always, learnability and frictionless processes are important KPI’s in the effort to enhance the user’s experience.
• Users of a closed-system application typically follow a linear journey with defined and controlled entry gateways. Application pages are linked (rather than standalone) and, depending on the journey, the content leading up to the final page would likely be different. By displaying only relevant content to the user, it helps them achieve their goals and increase their workflow efficiency.
• In contrast to a website which gives users the freedom to navigate around, an application usually requires a defined process or set of tasks to be completed in sequential order, this could be data entry, data extraction or uploading documents. The risks here are, if a user becomes confused or is faced with an obstacle along their journey, they can’t complete their task and are unable to resolve the issue themselves. It’s crucial that potential dead end journeys are identified and rectified to maintain the user’s momentum through the application
• Unlike designing a website with a potentially very broad user base, a closed-system application would usually have very specific user types, each of whom will have focused goals and tasks to be undertaken to achieve these goals.
• Some applications users may only be involved in completing part of a journey to achieve their goal, whereas others will need to complete an entire journey. That is why it’s essential to consider the different user types and their needs when reviewing an application.

The role of UX in application design:

User Experience ensures that the overall experience of using an application is as good as it can be within the limitation of the project. Understanding the users, their needs, pain points, predispositions and motivations as well as their ways of working and how the application fits into the productivity of their role, all provide the foundations to improving how the application looks and works.

By identifying the goals, tasks and scenarios of the system’s key users, you are able to plot the user journeys and reveal moments of truth to be highlighted which can hinder efficiency or progress towards reaching their goal.

When it comes to improving a complex application, it isn’t just about changing colours or moving buttons around. Understanding the processes that users go through when using the application (and other relevant related systems), the decisions they make and the actions they take, as well as the relevant content and information flows, means informed decisions can be made that will have the most impact.

Investing in UX:

To achieve insightful user feedback you need to invest in user-centric research. Often product managers can be reluctant to ask users for feedback, but in fact the skills lay in the questions you ask. It is true that people don’t know what they want, but they know what they are trying to do and what frustrates them or prevents them from achieving their goal.

By investing in User Experience research you will be able to uncover the root issues, identifying significant improvements to site structure, process workflows and taxonomy i.e. the language and words used, rather than just making changes to surface level problems which will have minimal impact.

UX in practice:

Representing an objective customer view can be very difficult to achieve when so many internal stakeholders have a vested interest and are so close to a project. A UX professional can be that representative and champion of the customer, whilst also considering the objectives of the business.

With a carefully managed approach there are many business-wide benefits to be reaped as a result of investing in user experience research. In addition to uncovering issues with the application, other challenges and frustrations can come to light which might in turn inspire new product or feature opportunities.

What the UX process does:

Once the discovery research has been undertaken, a UX expert will consider the existing application structure and workflows, using these insights to make decisions on how best to structure the system. As a complex application can have hundreds of different journeys, based on the goals of the business and the users, the UX process helps identify the most important journeys to optimise. Relevant process flows will be documented and wireframes of the key application pages created. The wireframes are designed to establish the content hierarchy, placement of key content and calls to action on each page.

Creating interactive wireframes or prototypes can give stakeholders and users an opportunity to see the proposed solution in action.

A low fidelity wireframe is a minimalistic way to show where content will be located on a page, with prototypes demonstrating interactions. A high fidelity wireframe or prototype can provide a very realistic experience as to how the application might work and how the content is presented. This is essential if undertaking user testing to review user journeys and content flows.

In summary:

When you use research and evidence to inform your decisions, it demonstrates that you have taken the best approach to reach the end result. Getting something wrong, because you relied on opinions or assumptions it much more difficult to justify when something goes wrong.

if you don’t have in-house UX support, ensure you find a User Experience agency with a track record of managing and delivering complex application projects. Don’t underestimate the extent of knowledge and skills required to do a successful complex application UX project. It simply isn’t enough to have expertise in website user experience design or user interface design.

With projects like these you need an agency that is experienced and comfortable working alongside in-house development teams. A collaborative relationship is vital to ensuring your project successfully comes to fruition and having an agency that is flexible to adapt to your developers way of working, and will open to bring them along on the journey is vital.

Next steps…

Are you ready to start your application project now? DotLabel UX and Digital Agency have experience of working on a variety of complex UX and UI projects for Anthony Nolan, Airbus and Licence Bureau. Contact us to find out how we can help you get it right!