# Your business requires paying customers to function.
# Your paying customers are your users.
# Your users interact with your product through its interface.
# If your interface is bad, your customers will leave.
# You will go out of business without customers.
So why do the user interfaces for web applications sometimes feel like an afterthought much of the time? (This is especially true for corporate intranet apps.) Even if your project can do amazing things it is worthless if you don't expose the functionality in an intuitive manner through the interface.
As I was writing this post Kathy Sierra actually "wrote something":http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/10/oops_we_forgot_.html that directly relates to my point here. You are in business because of your customers, so don't forget about them.
Want a great example of a web app where the UI doesn't feel tacked on? How about "Moo":http://www.moo.com/? Moo allows me to completely customize my flickr pictures that I want to go on their mini business cards, yet doing so is easy and intuitive. Heck, even with some of the handcuffs that come with being a web app it still manages to beat the pants off some desktop image editing apps.
Always make sure your UI is a central part of your development process. If it doesn't evolve with the application then you are just setting yourself up for some painful maintenance work later.
2006-10-04T14:21:35+00:00
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<ol>
<li>Your business requires paying customers to function.</li>
<li>Your paying customers are your users.</li>
<li>Your users interact with your product through its interface.</li>
<li>If your interface is bad, your customers will leave.</li>
<li>You will go out of business without customers.</li>
</ol>
<p>So why do the user interfaces for web applications sometimes feel like an afterthought much of the time? (This is especially true for corporate intranet apps.) Even if your project can do amazing things it is worthless if you don’t expose the functionality in an intuitive manner through the interface.</p>
<p>As I was writing this post Kathy Sierra actually <a href="http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/10/oops_we_forgot_.html">wrote something</a> that directly relates to my point here. You are in business because of your customers, so don’t forget about them.</p>
<p>Want a great example of a web app where the UI doesn’t feel tacked on? How about <a href="http://www.moo.com/">Moo</a>? Moo allows me to completely customize my flickr pictures that I want to go on their mini business cards, yet doing so is easy and intuitive. Heck, even with some of the handcuffs that come with being a web app it still manages to beat the pants off some desktop image editing apps.</p>
<p>Always make sure your UI is a central part of your development process. If it doesn’t evolve with the application then you are just setting yourself up for some painful maintenance work later.</p>
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"We'll Just Do The UI Later."
notebook/2006/10/04/just_do_the_ui_later