This is the third entry in the Making of a Web App series. Key points are:
Write profiles of users’ roles, responsibilities, and needs
Two profiles is good, three is borderline and four profiles indicates the scope for release 1.0 is too large.
User profiles are important tools for design and scope decisions.
This series shares a process that designers, developers, and managers can use to design applications that delight users. Or, if you are a web-application user, this series can help you gain a better understanding of the workings of a software project.
Whether builder or user, I think you’ll find this series useful. If so, let me know by leaving comments below. If not, well, please also let me know by leaving complaints below. If you want to easily follow along, you can subscribe by email here.
Know Your Users
In the previous article I shared that this series’ subject app is a sales team collaboration system. This is a broad stroke description of the app’s domain. Now we need to ensure a good understanding of the users’ roles, responsibilities, and needs. We’ll do that by writing up short profiles describing fictitious people.
”Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly different ones actually exist. The conclusions Schwartz draws will be familiar to anyone who has flipped through 900 eerily similar channels of cable television only to find that nothing good is on. Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of jeans, Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options (“easy fit” or “relaxed fit”?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.”
From David Verba, Director of Technology, Adaptive Path:
”A successful product depends on the experience your users have and how well your product serves their needs.”
”Don’t try to be everything to everybody.”
Selections from Robert Hoekman, Jr., interaction designer and usability specialist:
”It conforms to the way users interact with the Web, but focuses on the activity instead of a specific audience.”
”It has only those features that are absolutely necessary for users to complete the activity the application is meant to support.”
”It has uniformly designed interface elements, but leverages irregulariry to create meaning and importance.”
My design goals include those above plus:
It is fast and responsive.
It provides continous feedback to guide users.
It minimizes navigation and focusses on activity.
It’s all Plain Old Common Sense
Each of these goals of great software design are rather self-evident. I list them here as a reminder to myself and other web application designers to design applications not around a technology convention, framework’s expectations, or IT models of what an application should be but around the user’s experience.
It’s difficult to talk about web application design in this Making of a Web App series without first describing the application. Other designers have hidden their plans while sharing their process by offering vague design decisions and small, blurry screenshots. The results are less than satisfactory so in this series we’ll share the details of the actual application. Here it is: in Making of a Web app, we are building sales team collaboration software. Here is some context as to why.
“The focus should not be on features, the focus should be on focus. An obvious application is a focused application. It is easy to explain to other people. It makes sense to those using it because the purpose of the tool is self-evident, and nothing in it strays from that purpose. Every feature supports the single activity the application is designed to support.”
“Trying to match competing products feature for feature is like running through a battleground under cover fire. You can run all you want, but you have to keep shooting to get anywhere….It’s not a fun way to do things….It’s exhausting. It’s also exhausting for users.”
This is Synap Software's blog on Marketing, Software Design, Small Business, Management, Technology, Productivity, and other topics of interest to new small businesses.
Scott Meade is the author and an entrepreneur, corporate refugee, father, husband, and small business owner living near Denver, CO. After a successful stint leading large, corporate IT efforts, Scott co-founded Synap Software to bring well-designed web apps to small businesses.
