I think it is the difference between being intended for a professional or consumer audience.
The professional tool is expected to be used for many hours over and over. The ideal design is whatever reduces the cycle load for the user. So you get information dense screens with all the tools up front and exposed. They tend to be intimidating as hell for casual and new users.
The consumer tool is intended to be used rarely at great intervals. The ideal design is that which gently guides the user through an unfamiliar task. so you end up with deep sparse screens. Much easier to find your way but a pain in the ass when you know what you are doing.
I think a lot of designers over emphasize the experience for new users to the detriment of experienced users. To the point that I use "user-friendly" as a sort of euphemism for shitty software design. remember, usable is not the same thing as user friendly.
> They tend to be intimidating as hell for casual and new users.
There are a lot of fields and buttons, but also a lot of "smart" logic that's part of our secret sauce that puts us ahead of most competitors.
I've been pondering if this is an area where we could use a LLM to improve the user experience. Have a way for the user to describe what they want to do, and have the LLM provide the steps necessary to do so.
When new it can be hard to read and understand large user manuals, especially when you're on the clock and need to have this order registered and processed yesterday. A lot of our users are not very technical either, so being able to clarify etc could be helpful.
A lot of the professional tools also have the luxury of not needing to be user friendly. Private individuals will just turn away from tools they don't know how to use, corporate employees just straight up don't have that option.
While true, we do try to make it as user friendly as we can, and do incorporate feedback from users. We've also hired a lot of our support staff from our customers, so I frequently ask them for advice when designing new modules and features.
We're a small but growing company, so I've been planning on incorporating more methodical approaches to see where we might improve going forward.
I'm primarily concerned with providing a great product for our users. However I do hope it has a positive effect reducing the load on support.
It can be challenging though. We might provide great training but then that employee moves on and their replacement doesn't get the same training, so they don'tunderstand fully what they're supposed to do or how our software fits in their processes. And users are often not very technical, while the processes they need to perform often can get somewhat technical due to regulations or similar aspects outside of our control. Guiding the unsure users while not getting in the way of the seasoned ones can be a delicate act.
The professional tool is expected to be used for many hours over and over. The ideal design is whatever reduces the cycle load for the user. So you get information dense screens with all the tools up front and exposed. They tend to be intimidating as hell for casual and new users.
The consumer tool is intended to be used rarely at great intervals. The ideal design is that which gently guides the user through an unfamiliar task. so you end up with deep sparse screens. Much easier to find your way but a pain in the ass when you know what you are doing.
I think a lot of designers over emphasize the experience for new users to the detriment of experienced users. To the point that I use "user-friendly" as a sort of euphemism for shitty software design. remember, usable is not the same thing as user friendly.