This week has been an eye opener into the reality that I’m a programmer and not a designer. I’ve nearly completed my second year as a professional software developer and have quite the project list for my resume, and still have so much to learn about software development. This post is about the user experience design problem I encountered with two clients.

The first example comes from an Auction Manager application I wrote that handles property auctions and contacts.

This application was not based off any other application and was created from scratch. As I created this and went through various meetings with the client it was clear there are various steps and seperations during the process of property auctions. As an application that will grow over the years I imagined that using an Outlook style explorer bar would be benefitial and make the application easy to understand and learn. Once work started picking up for the client and the software was used more they found that this kind of style slows down the work flow, because of the extra clicks it takes to get to the various screens they need. After I visit them this week I’m sure I’ll come up with a better idea to repair the work flow and create a better user experience, but my question is how do you plan and prepare the great user experience if the application never existed? What works for some clients may not work the same for others.

The second example I have is a point of sales system I created for small businesses. This is still in development and I’m 100% sure this interface will change within the next two weeks.

While creating this software I searched the internet to view various screen shots of point of sales systems to get an idea of how I could improve the ease of use for users. A lot of systems out there are screens loaded with information that will completely confuse the user. By simplifying everything and making the whole process faster. The boss and other office co-workers liked the system and said it should be a really big hit with people. One of our clients that will be using the software soon came to have a sneak peek at it. Their first reactions were that all the information is displayed on the screen and there is no contrast between the various parts which will leave users confused. Her point of sale system that she is switching from is QuickBooks POS, so everything she compared to was that. If it doesn’t function like QuickBooks with the various screens they use, then it appears to confusing to learn? I just don’t understand the design side of things to accept feedback like this.

Every client is different, and small businesses seem less likely to have training sessions because their work schedules are so busy. In the last year I’ve heard multiple comments that clients want their software to look and function exactly like Microsoft products and other big name companies like Intuit. Their reaction really comes from years of using these products, which causes me stress because of the thought and ideas I’ve put into the making the software I’m presenting. New innovative ideas don’t stand a chance in a fast moving busy small business. I am confused on how to approach the user experience design side of things because all I’ve done is programmed most of my life.

If anyone has some great adivce on resources to read or listen to I’d be more than willing to take a look. Right now I try to learn as much as possible from various web searches on the topic and listen to the Pixel8 podcast.