Its been quite some time since my last blog entry, I thought I would start off the year with my next ux tip for building better applications. Let's be honest, I rarely get called into a project until development is well under way, and when I do the first thing I do is review the application in terms of it's User Experience. And for this tip I am going to give you the breakdown of how and what I look at in such a review so that you can begin to review your own applications as well as develop applications with these concepts in mind.

I begin my review by breaking the application down into six different aspects of User Experience and I note the positives and negatives of each aspect... what works and what doesn't those aspects are as follows:

1. Communication

How well does your application communicate to the user. In most situations we as business application developers are in the habit of creating forms with a simple 1 or 2 word label and some sort of input field. The big problem is we rarely write descriptions into these forms. We rarely describe the field outside of the 1 or 2 word label and sometimes that is just not enough to explain the input field. Additionally the overall application, the overall form itself may require some simple descriptions in why or what the user is filling out. And don't just stop there, context sensitive help, tool tips, even taking a note from MS Money and provide camtasia like videos showing some brief examples of how a particular function works when its not straight forward can help communicate and lower the need for training of your applications.

2. Usability

This is probably the most synonymous to UX, how usable is your application. How intuitive is your application. There are plenty of sources of what this is and what it takes to make a usable application. A simple and easy way to determine how usable your application is, simply sit behind several users using your application without helping them with it. Let them sit down and just use it... you will be surprised where users may stumble in your application and provide very clear areas you may need to improve.

3. Visual Aesthetics

Visual Aesthetics is probably the most bizarre to some application developers as well as the most obvious to understand. We as a world generally care what something looks like it, we make decisions and spend billions of dollars on physical appearances of things consciously and subconsciously. I have been in many different development shops who quote the same thing... "I don't care what it looks like, Our users care more that it works and makes their job easier." I wont deny this as true, but I guarantee you if you application was compared to a equally working application that looks better, everyone would choose the better looking application. Its just plain fact. People do care of the physical appearance of things, and as users are more exposed to technology all around them, expectations in this department will continue to be raised. Don't let your applications feel dated by simply having an application with zero visual appeal.

4. Utility

Utility is my own term, and probably the reason most of us are employed into application development. What I mean by utility is how useful is the application. Is the work flow accomplishing its usefulness, is the interface doing what it set out to do. One of the most common mistakes I have seen in the past was business mainframe UI's converted to web based applications. Most developers didn't take the quick response and the simple fact mainframe users never really dealt with a mouse and presented these users with a web based solution. The usefulness was lost in translation and what was intended to be a better system all to often cost more time instead of saving it. The key point is make sure your application is accomplishing its stated and sometimes unstated goals.

I always use the analogy of the swiss army knife... I once had a magazine with all sorts of different swiss army knifes. Each had a different collection of blades, tools, toothpicks, pliers, spoons, etc...  The idea is making sure you have the right knife set for the job. The same holds true for our applications.

5. Delivery

Delivery is simple, small and in the world of business applications sometimes overlooked. The basic concept is your application delivering appropriately to the audience. Make sure you're not giving them a web app when they need a windows app, and vice versa. Make sure it works in the users screen resolution, that it runs effectively with their PC's. Simple, easy, and if it fails, it fails horribly.

6. Hype

Last but not least is hype, the major concern I have on any job is how do users feel about the new application. Are they happy with it, what are their expectations, do they look forward to the new changes... hype is important. Its important your users have a good vibe, a good attitude towards what you're developing. A great application can fail in the eyes of the business if the users have a bad attitude towards change. It can be the difference if users use the application or continue doing what they did before the application was ever built... or keeps them from constantly complaining and making your developments look bad.