Avoiding Complex Data Entry Is A Good Thing
I’ve been spending a bit of time as of late doing some specification work for a potential project.
One of the things which happened to be an interesting point of contention during some of this was the complexity of some of the options present in the UI. The front-end of the application was originally specced out to be a native iPhone application, but was re-scoped into being an mobile-optimised web site instead.
Regardless of what platform I was meant to implement it with, the application was reliant upon the user creating an order – with each order allowing multiple items. Each of the items in the order was made up of 6 fields.
This should be logic enough to build a UI for, right?
In most cases, I believe it would be. In the case of this application, each of the fields was to be populated from a list of allowed values. If the range of values was within a reasonable range, I’d have no problem with this. But, in a number of cases, this was not to be.
This, to me, is a sign of a larger problem when it comes to applications like this. A good application should be designed to be quick to use, and only through a careful evaluation of the workflow for the user, can an interface which makes some task easier to be achieved.
In this case? If I had full control over this application, the first thing I would have fought for is a reduced set of values for each of the options. Reducing that level of complexity would give some room to be able to play with alternatives to the traditional UI form factor.
Beyond that? It also reminds me of the need to be prepared to put the resources into a project. Whether it’s on the web, on the desktop, or on a mobile device, as a developer, you need to be prepared to put the effort into it, and as a client, you need to be prepared to finance it.
In this day & age, users need to be the end goal… to provide an experience which makes their task easier & faster. You cannot treat application design as a simply stick-it-into-a-big-form approach. This does nothing but show a lack of care on your part, which leads to poor reviews, and less returning clients.