Make it easy - Make it fast - Make it intuitive by Moira Ashleigh

Posted on July 27, 2015 at 1:00 PM

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One of the ongoing challenges in the software and the business world is the tension between "will this bring us money right away" and "Is this an excellent product?" Many times it seems as if the "money right away" wins.

"We only have 6 customers for this product we cannot justify putting resources toward enhancing it, making it responsive, fixing the deferred bugs, tightening up the vulnerabilities, etc."

This is a place where the UI/UX designer or contractor comes in faced with the task of not spending too much time, either theirs or the developers, and not changing it too much. This can be pretty deflating to the worker who wants to make the "best ever" product and have pride in their work. But a professional designer recognizes it as a business reality and works to turn the limitations into opportunities. An opportunity to create the highest impact changes in the UI with minimal impact on the code and underlying databases. It often means spending more time understanding how it works and what the data looks like. But the results are worth it.

One thing I try to accomplish in my work is to find a way to make the user interface work easily and quickly, with fewer clicks. I don't spend less time on the bling and more time on how can I make this function in a way that makes the customer happier using it, so they can get in get the job done and go on to the rest of their day. Bling is nice and fun to do, but after about seeing the bling three times the customer stops looking at it and just wants to get their work done.

A good UI design mantra is the title: Make it Easy, Make it Fast, Make it Intuitive.