POP UX

Any body who is building a software application wants their creation to be the next killer application, the shiznit, the best in its field by adding all the features they can think of and what is the current popular feature trend. Sometimes people behind the product get overwhelmed with the new features to be added, changes to the existing features that can lead to burnout.

Following is  a ‘usability severity problem’ table from the book of Jacob Nielsen. What is good about this is that the main factor here are the users, and not the developers’ or anybody from the team’s whims. The factors can be varied here, but this is a nice way of ‘labeling or categorizing’ your changes or new features to your application this way.You can modify this as your basis of when to add or not new features and changes to your application.

From Usability Engineering book by Jacob Nielsen

A toolbox holds different tools. Each tool in the box has its own functionality. The tools in the box may work hand-in-hand with one another but they are independent from each other. Each tool can function without the aid of the other tools. But you can use the different tools to achieve one goal.

The point I’m trying to drive is that if you have a big application, you design it like toolbox. You should try to make each different function in the application as a unique tool independent from other.

Take for example eBay. eBay is an online store application. The 2 basic main tools it has for sellers are: store front, and payment system. These 2 tools are independent from each other because you can use eBay as an online storefront only, and not use their payment system which is paypal.

I had worked shortly before with an HRIS (human resource info system). They also designed their application like a toolbox. The different tasks/features are created as individual mini-applications inside the big applications. Some of the features I coul still remember are: directory, holiday database, admin setting, org chart, many more. It used a drag-and-drop pattern. It was a pretty convenient application because the user can choose what tools to display on his dashboard. So if I were a production employee, I no longer have to deal with the ‘org chart builder’ tool in my dashboard. The users are free from the nuisance display of tools that are irrelevant to their job.

It is a good consideration to chunk your application into different independent tools, when planning your application, but of course are related to each other, related in reaching one goal. The advantages I see of designing your application like a toolbox are:

* users can learn your application one tool at a time. If he gets comfortable with 1 feature/function (tool), he will be confident to go on to the next feature on his own pace. This will make his learning experience with the application more pleasant, enjoyable.
* Users will not feel pressured to learn the whole application just so they can make it work. Since features are independet from each other, they can already get satisfaction when they could see result even without using the whole list of features.
* The user might already have an existing other application he is using for his work. If that is the case, user can just use the part/feature of your application that is lacking from his other application. Your application can be a complement to their other applications.
* It is easy to divide tasks. For example in eBay, one person can be tasked to handle in puttig the display online. Another will be tasked to set the payment setting.
* If a user gets frustrated with 1 feature then he can skip that, and explore other features instead. This way only a tool is skipped, and not the entire application is dumped.