Format: Web
/ Enterprise Application
Date: 04/04
Being the first Interaction Designer assigned
to Services Procurement (sPro) fulltime, I felt it was of my
first responsibilities
was to take a holistic view of the product.
Taking on several user roles, I walked
through the product. The first things I noticed from reviewing
sPro was a lack
of consistency throughout the user experience. Often the
product
looked and functioned one way in one component and looked
and functioned in a different way in another part of the
product.
Consistency Problems
A chronic problem with PeopleSoft applications (and many
other enterprise level applications) is a lack of consistency
throughout
the user interface. Many of the consistency problems can
be attributed to accelerated development cycles, application
components
being designed and developed independently of one another,
and no team member viewing the application interface holistically.
This lack of consistency leads to a confusing experience
for the user Buttons, links, fields and system functions
behave
differently depending on user type and what application
component the user is in.
After I completed my review, I
decided to conduct a comprehensive consistency evaluation
on the user interface and functionality
and present the results to the product team.
Consistency
Evaluation
I decided to evaluate the following
areas of sPro because I determined that making changes
to these areas would have
the
greatest impact in the shortest amount of time. The evaluation
was broken down into long-term and short-term recommendations:
Short-term:
- Use of different search interfaces types.
- Consistent button placement and
text.
- Page and field label formatting.
- Consistent use and placement
of Return Links.
- Use of error messaging and instructional
copy.
- Use and formatting of confirmation pages.
- Formatting and
of Information display grids.
- Use of group boxes.
Long-term:
- UI and functional analysis.
- In-depth analysis of how sPro
is used by our customers.
- Discount usability testing.
- In-depth usability testing.
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