
Whitespace killed an enterprise app - kirkbackus
https://uxdesign.cc/how-white-space-killed-an-enterprise-app-and-why-data-density-matters-b3afad6a5f2a
======
hn_throwaway_99
Hallelujah. It's not just enterprise apps, either. I've seen more than a few
consumer app redesigns that just seemed to tack on the "clean", "minimalist",
"whitespace" ethos, without really having a clue of an understanding of how
users actually used the product.

I think this is a big factor in what killed slashdot. They did a big redesign
years back that added a lot of whitespace but actually made it incredibly
difficult to easily browse comment threads and see quality comments.
Similarly, despite the old Reddit interface having a reputation as being
"ugly", I hate the new interface and always browse on old.reddit.com, mainly
because of the higher density of information that makes it easier for me to
scan for posts I want to read.

~~~
tenaciousDaniel
God yes, the older reddit interface was so much better. I don't give a shit
how pretty the UI is.

~~~
SlightRespect
Craigslist is _the_ case study on how an ugly UI can survive over a long
timeline. There are many techies and UI designers that are just disgusted at
the UI of craigslist. For some, aesthetic is more important than usability.
Luckily, for most, it's not.

~~~
nafey
Not to forget amazon.com. I am actually in awe of their boldness in completely
ignoring UI design trends.

~~~
guelo
Amazon has purposefully broken their search and navigation, but probably in an
anti-consumer metric-driven way instead of designer-driven.

~~~
nerpderp82
Ebay is the pinnacle of broken search and navigation! They should be winning
awards, industry accolades, Webbies, the works!

~~~
maxxxxx
I find eBay search more predictable than amazon. When I use amazon I feel that
they show to me what they think I should get instead of what I want.

~~~
nerpderp82
Ebay removed substring search years ago, and this basically collapsed a whole
bunch of industries that were using Ebay as their marketplace. Think hundreds
of thousands of similar part numbers. This is why you see pages of part
numbers blasted over the listing details.

Ebay's one job is to connect buyers and sellers and they fail miserably at
that.

Not even a local minimum, a global minimum. Not a platform, a gated swamp.

------
mruts
A great example of a really nice information dense app is the Bloomberg
terminal. Maybe it’s ugly (a lot of people say this, but I personally don’t
think so), but all the right design choices have been made. High Contrast,
monospaced fonts, extensive keybindings, absolutely no wasted space. And, most
essential, it’s not a web app.

I used to work at a portfolio analytics company who’s explicit goal was: to
have all of Wall St use Bloomberg on one screen, and our product on the other.

Our app was probably the anti-thesis to the Bloomberg Terminal in almost
everyway: “modern” design, tons of white space, a web app, making you have to
log in every 30 minutes for “security”, no keybindings.

I’m sure most of HN have never used the terminal, but let me give an analogy.
The Bloomberg Terminal is like using Emacs or Vim, they make you feel
powerful, they make you feel like a wizard.

Our app was like google docs, you never felt like you were in direct control
of it. You never felt like it was an extension of yourself. Unsurprisingly,
even though our app was incredibly useful and provided portfolio analytics
that you could only get from excel (our biggest competitor), it, and the
company, was largely a failure. Instead of being worth billions, we were
capped at a valuation of 200m for over 5 years.

I believe completely that the company’s failure was due to our “modern” white
space heavy app.

~~~
redwall_hp
This is how I feel about computing in general. GUIs in general were a mistake.
Vim is fucking awesome, and there's no replacing a shell and the myriad CLI
utilities you have at your disposal. The computer is there to automate
repetitive tasks, not create virtual busywork.

GUIs generally represent the sacrifice of power and automation for
approachability by the lowest common denominator.

~~~
shawnz
> The computer is there to automate repetitive tasks, not create virtual
> busywork.

The GUI eliminated the busy work of setting up your environment to make your
workflows easy. It instead provides an environment where a wide variety of
workflows are easy by default, although maybe not as easy as they could be
with specific configuration like setting up customized keybindings, etc.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Easy but time consuming. I.e. not ergonomic. Also point&click UIs tend to
sacrifice composability, whereas keyboard-driven interfaces tend to allow to
chain operations and modifiers in a way that makes it ergonomically cover much
larger space of possible workflows.

~~~
shawnz
> Easy but time consuming

But learning is time consuming, too. Keyboard-driven interfaces can be more
efficient but they are not discoverable. Maybe keyboard-driven interfaces make
sense for the domain specific tasks that you do every day, but would you want
a keyboard-driven interface for every random website you come across?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _would you want a keyboard-driven interface for every random website you
> come across?_

Definitely, no. But you can have _both_ at the same time; in fact, in 90s-era
applications and in professional desktop software, this is the norm. You build
your discoverable UI, but ensure every action is attached to a keyboard
shortcut, and that keyboard shortcut is also discoverable. Call it
"progressive enhancement" of UI ergonomics, if you like; the point is not to
put the ceiling for regular users on the level of your average first-time
user.

> _But learning is time consuming, too._

Not as much as time wasted if you don't provide a "faster path" to learn. I'm
trying hard to understand, why modern UX designers react to the _possibility_
(not even requirement) of users learning like devil to holy water. That is,
beyond the obvious reason - pretty but useless software sells better, as you
rate looks on first impression, but ergonomics on repeated use (i.e. after
sale).

------
PakG1
I'll forever be scarred by a web app I made to make the workflow in a
mainframe terminal obsolete. Was so proud of what I'd done and all the
theoretical productivity I had enabled (hey, I calculated the numbers, and the
manager signed off on it!).

But my only lasting memory of that app is that it probably didn't increase
productivity as much as I thought it did when I looked at how they used it day
to day, and only succeeded in giving them carpal tunnel syndrome due to all
the extra mouse-clicking. The final conversation I had with those users is how
their wrists were starting to hurt so much. But hey, I was moving on to
another project. Hey, sorry to hear, here are some exercises for your wrists,
see ya. Oh, by the way, did you ever try Powerball? Supposed to do wonders to
make your wrists stronger.

I try not to be so narrow-minded about app design after that. Pretty does not
necessarily equal functional, useful, or value-adding.

edit: In retrospect, those users grocked that terminal interface with all
their key shortcuts the way a seasoned developer or sysadmin would grock
emacs. Imagine forcing such a guy to use point and click instead for
everything. You'd have a riot. I can't believe I didn't see it at the time.
Young and naive, and now also regretful for all those people's wrists.

~~~
Roboprog
Bank tellers went through this in the 90s. You could tell when they swapped
out their terminals for Windows. No more machine gun F key navigation, hello
“hunt n grunt” cruising with the mouse.

~~~
ilikehurdles
This is what I’m increasingly going through with apple’s Touch Bar. Half the
time I’m accidentally hitting it when I don’t mean to, and the other half of
the time I have to look down, as a touch typist, to find the “button” I want.

------
duxup
One point:

>Are there things my users really don’t need to see right now? If you don’t
know, ask!

ASK! ASK! ASK!

For the love of god please ask your users. I worked for a company with a big
clunky enterprise app. It got redesigned numerous times and rolled out with
big fanfare.

Nobody who used for any significant amount of time was involved in any of the
redesigns. It was horrible every time with numerous changes just to get it not
to be a huge pain point.... and then a new overhaul would come again.

I changed jobs to web development recently and really the first questions are
to define the problems we're solving, and find out from folks using it day to
day what their pain points are and how they work. I'll make some mvp type
stuff for say a given function and then show them and get more feedback, the
important thing is to get it from the end user, not their boss, not their VP,
but the end user (boss and VP have to be involved too of course, just in other
ways, distract them with fun control panels and such....).

I ended up working for a very small company, handful of people, me and one
senior programmer, the product doesn't dominate the market but time and again
customers just love that we call, ask, and do stuff and don't dictate how they
work (within reason).

You can still make things clean, but when removing things you have to ask,
communicate, you'd be surprised how much you can change if it is part of a
conversation, and how little you can change if you just force it on them.

~~~
varikin
> ASK! ASK! ASK!

Except users lie all the time. They don't know what they need or want. People
are horrible at being logical about what will actually help them.

Watch them work. Watch a bunch of people work. Test and prototype changes and
watch more people work. And watch them work at their desk or where ever they
work.

~~~
manyxcxi
> Watch them work.

This x1000! I took on a freelance project for a heavy machinery hauling
company. They were a year into transitioning away from some customized off the
shelf Enterprise scheduling and dispatch system into some custom built
software by an “Enterprise” consulting company.

They were originally bringing me in to audit what the team that was building
it but that pretty much changed on the day I submitted my proposal...

In the proposal I wrote to my then prospective client I allocated a couple of
days of onsite interviews with “lower than management” people that would be
using the system or it’s outputs, and a week of shadowing people in all roles
that would be directly using the system. The project sponsor (to his credit)
didn’t ask me why I would need to do that, he started laughing and exclaimed
that I was the only person to ever even recommend this approach.

We ended up re-writing the proposal into multiple phases where I just
interviewed and assessed, documented their current processes, provided
business process workflows and suggested ways their current workflow could be
optimized, irrespective of any one technological solution. A crappy process,
then automated, is still crappy.

I wound up spending 6 weeks before even proposing anything that had to do with
technology.

My implementation proposal was set in phases that would bring related
functions to light in a way that their teams could begin using them right away
and we could collect feedback and iterate while producing the next set of
features as well. It was their first ‘agile’ project or contract and the fear
was quelled when after the first month I had put more useful software in their
dispatchers hands than the “Enterprise” team had in a year.

From day one interviews to “finished” project we spent about 6 months and that
system still lives 9 years later- though it has been modernized and upgraded
every so often in the intervening time, it is still one of my proudest
projects even though it was one of the least “sexy” I’ve ever done.

~~~
kbenson
> it is still one of my proudest projects even though it was one of the least
> “sexy” I’ve ever done.

I think one of the most valuable thing software engineers can do for
themselves in some circumstances is attempt to shift perspective towards
assessing projects by how many people they help and how. The most rewarding
projects I can think of are the ones where a day or two after rolling them
out, I'm contacted by a few employees that they affected the most and told
they _love_ it and it saves them 30-90 minutes every day, consistently.

I think it's a feeling most developers can empathize with, since we often
automate boring drudge work in our own jobs and lives. Making multiple
people's lives and jobs a little less monotonous and dreary, or a little more
effective at their job in a way they feel and appreciate is a good feeling.

~~~
butisaidsudo
My wife is a genetic counsellor, and as part of her work she regular has to
use this one formula to calculate the probability of this one genetic
condition I can't quite recall.

Because of the complexity and the importance of getting it right, it took her
around 10-15 minutes every time she needed to use it. She, and her colleagues,
are pretty much luddites so a basic calculator was their only tool.

I spent 10 minutes writing the formula in javascript, dropping it an html
file, and running a few test.

She absolutely loved it, and shared it with the rest of the staff. Apparently
some counsellors at another clinic heard about it and requested it as well.
Someone thanked me at her Christmas staff party.

In terms of effort to build vs. hours saved and end user appreciation, I don't
think I'll ever top it.

~~~
andrepd
It probably boggles the mind of people like us, used to being power command-
line users and automating our boring tasks with powerful tools, to hear
stories like this.

~~~
kbenson
With the prevalence of office jobs that use computers, being a developer is
sort of like being an engineer in the 1960's or before but having the ability
to whip up designs for simple mechanical devices that you can build for very
low time and money cost, and replicate for free. It's like being the inventor
of the slap-chop except that it costs so little to get items out there, that
people often just do it for free. I would love it if I was doing some annoying
repetitive task like mincing garlic or onions and someone said "hey, I can
make that easier. Give me an hour..."

~~~
lioeters
I like your description, it's one of things I love about software, how
malleable it is for quickly building "devices", tools for my own use or a
potentially large number of users.

About the last point you made, how it would be great if hardware/mechanical
devices could be made more like software - a few years ago I heard about
"micro factories" (forgot the exact term): 3D printers for small(er) scale
manufacturing. It seemed promising that soon we could be writing software to
manufacture devices/products at home, in a garage, local maker "lab". If you
thought of an easier mechanism to mince garlic, you could whip up a prototype
in a code editor and "print out" a working prototype (or production-level
device)..

------
jasode
_> a well-intentioned UX Designer at a large high-tech company who was given a
new project: Redesign an internal control panel that was ugly [...] It lasted
one month before the company was forced to retire it. Users absolutely hated
the new system. Sure, the old system was ugly, but it had everything they
needed, right at their fingertips! Their jobs were incredibly fast paced—they
worked in a tech support call center and were rated on productivity metrics.
They didn’t have time to click or scroll to find information while the clock
was literally ticking._

This same exact story of a UI disaster happened at a Fortune 100 company I was
at in 2005. They had a legacy app (think DOS character mode talking to a
mainframe) for entering accounting documents.

To replace it, a high-priced consulting firm installed a "web portal"
technology. (Unifying a company's various enterprise applications behind a
single web portal was a hot endeavor back then.)

When it was rolled out, the accounting department _fell behind on their work_.
Nobody noticed that the constant UI banner at the top of the of the web portal
browser window was forcing users to always use the mouse to scroll up and down
to look at information. In the old DOS system, they could just enter info from
invoices quickly without even looking at the screen. But the new system broke
the users' fluid familiarity.

The UI disaster was so bad that the consulting company had to have their
consultants come in on Saturday to help the client's workers catch up on all
their data entry. Imagine an army of $150k consultants doing the work of
$10/hour clerks because the web portal's UI was never really field-tested with
a real-world workload! If just one UI web developer actually shadowed one of
their users for a day, they would have noticed the usability problem.

~~~
fermienrico
I can't believe how many times I've heard your story but in different
companies.

I feel like there is an opportunity to make a graphical user interface
framework that mimics old terminals. Full screen apps that leverage use of the
keyboard shortcuts or hell even a custom keyboard specifically made for
industrial use. Basically a IBM 400 system but running on modern software
stack. Airlines have stuck with their UI and for good reasons.

~~~
tabtab
Being easy to use and easy to learn are not necessarily the same thing. GUI's
are generally easier to learn, but not necessarily the most productive once a
typical user reaches the plateau of the learning curve. A UI designed to
minimize hand and eye movements may have a longer learning curve than a GUI.
The ideal solution may thus depend on staff turnover rate.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
I think you'd be surprised how quickly people can pick up on an interface that
is as simple as the kinds of TUIs we're talking about. These kinds of things
were very common for all sorts of tasks throughout the late 80s and early 90s
and I don't think I've ever heard of the learning curve being a problem.

~~~
noir_lord
Shift+F5 F10 F10 code Return.

How to look up unsold inventory on the system at the first job I worked in
1999.

There people there who could navigate 5 screens without looking until the
system returned the result they wanted.

People are smarter than many give them credit, the computing revolution in
business really started taking off in an era when computers booted to
something like.

    
    
        C:\>
    

I’m not suggesting we throw out guis but we could do much better in some
areas.

------
tabtab
Re: _Everyone agreed it needed modernization—it looked like it was from the
early 2000s, after all!_

My goodness, Flintones even. The fashion chase is becoming obsessive and
wasteful. As I've ranted about many times on HN, UI faddism is a huge time and
resource drain and the industry should just say no or see a therapist.

It sounds strange, but desktop UI's around 2000 pretty much reached the
pinnacle of business UI's. The web slid us downhill with its stateless ways,
unpredictable layout results, and now wasting screen space while copying
touch-screen-oriented design for mouse users who don't need swollen
boundaries. Use 5-pixel lines to visually segregate panels, saving you about
20 pixels of width versus white space. ("Web" pixels, not nec. actual pixels.)

(The only exception is perhaps drill-down link-heavy lists/reports/charts. The
web served these well.)

~~~
ryandrake
I’m convinced this happens everywhere, at almost every software company. As a
developer, the most demotivating part of my job was the endless redesigns-for-
the-sake-of-redesigns that kept happening. It’s ultimately what drove me away
from being an individual contributor software engineer.

And it’s always for goofy vague reasons: “It looks dated!” “It needs more
pop!” “It’s not fresh enough!” (What are we making? Software or food?) Nobody
is willing or able to prove with numbers or measurement that the old UI is bad
and the new UI is better. It’s usually just the designer’s hunch! Yet if I
want to change the search algorithm we are using I have to prove the new one
is faster with research...

~~~
beamatronic
Not only does it happen almost everywhere but is has been going on since the
beginning. There were people in the 90’s who did nothing but study UI’s, what
happened to them??

~~~
goatlover
The web happened. And now people use the web GUI to make destkop and mobile
applications.

------
gk1
Please change the clickbait title. The app didn't die, they just had to revert
the design change.

That aside, the Freshbooks redesign last year pushed me to switch to
QuickBooks for exactly this reason. The new design had the stereotypical
"modern app" design, but every common task required 5x more time than before.

For example, just to change the category of an expense you have to 1) click on
the expense, wait for the detail page to load, 2) click on the category, 3)
click "Change Category" and wait for the dropdown to load, 4) click on the new
category, wait for it to apply, 5) click "Save", 6) click "Back to expenses."
And every interaction takes a second or two to register, so imagine a delay
between every step. Now imagine doing this 50 times every month when you're
doing bookkeeping.

... In the previous version this took two clicks: 1) In the expense listing
screen, click on the category, a drop down instantly appears, 2) click on the
new category, it instantly applies.

They also took away the feature to add an accountant to your account. Imagine
if GitHub took away the option to add "member" users.

~~~
manigandham
Xero just did this with their Invoice section. Everything is fancy looking but
has less visible data and less features with 10x more work to do the same
thing.

But people want Excel levels of functionality, not a brochure, and the
community has been unanimous with negative feedback so maybe they'll improve
while they still can.

~~~
gk1
Really mind-boggling. I'd think companies of those sizes would do usability
tests to see how users react BEFORE they roll it out to hundreds of thousands
(millions?) of users.

------
jrochkind1
> Users absolutely hated the new system. Sure, the old system was ugly, but it
> had everything they needed, right at their fingertips!

I'm not sure this is about whitespace or information density.

I think that users, especially users using something as part of their job on a
regular basis ("enterprise"), _hate change_. Any change. If they know how to
use the thing as part of their job now, it is very difficult to make a
significant change that they won't (at least initially) say they hate and want
the old thing back. _Even if_ the change would have been liked better by more
_new_ users/customers. _Even if_ they hated the old thing too!

And aside from just change-aversion, of course, there may have been lots of
knowledge/decisions about what users actually needed to do to do their jobs
"encoded" in the old UX, as a result of lots of changes over time, that can be
lost when creating a brand-new-from-scratch UX -- especially if you aren't
doing a lot of (or any? it wasn't mentioned in the post) UX research in
advance of the re-design.

I think this story may be about _change_ , without necessarily being able to
conclude anything about the factors of the change/design, such as whitespace,
or any other design elements.

If you're doing UX design, you should be doing UX research. And not assuming
any universal principles about whitespace or information density from this
blog post.

~~~
hinkley
Yeah I have similar concerns about the lessons learned. Power users rely on
muscle memory. Productivity is boosted by familiarity. Unless there is a great
deal of turnover on the team, the thing they are familiar with is the thing
they have.

If you want to change that you have to come at it with respect and empathy.
Fields nobody uses anymore? You can take them away but that changes tab order.
So you might have to do that piecemeal or one screen at a time to give people
time to adjust.

UX for pros runs counter to a lot of guidelines for beginners. You’re trying
to reduce the amount of attention they have to dedicate so they can go faster
or juggle the feelings of the person they’re talking to. They want speed and
predictability. Discovery is only for very obscure workflows. Important, yes,
but not paramount.

I’ve seen this even with developer tools. When someone starts yelling at a dev
the conversation goes smoother when the task is straightforward. “Let me just
pop in here and look... here’s your problem.”

------
carlmr
>Use color deliberately.

And think of the color blind. Especially dark red shouldn't be the only way
this information is highlighted. 8% of men are the kind of red-green
colorblind, where dark red and black is not easily distinguishable.

If 8% of men don't see your error notifications, maybe that shouldn't be the
only kind of highlighting (or choose a color that is less likely to affect so
many people, like orange).

>Let users export data, instead

And maybe even import. I have a lot of administrative tasks I could script
easily, if I had more direct access. But writing a python script using a
headless browser, which breaks every time they update, doesn't sound as
attractive.

And a point they kind of forgot: Make it perform well. There are so many
enterprise apps where you need to click a lot and wait so much time in between
you start doing something else, which reduces your flow.

A second point: Give people keyboard shortcuts, and make them apparent through
tooltips. Your power users will highly appreciate if they can do things more
quickly with the right shortcuts.

~~~
reaperducer
_> Use color deliberately.

And think of the color blind. Especially dark red shouldn't be the only way
this information is highlighted. 8% of men are the kind of red-green
colorblind, where dark red and black is not easily distinguishable._

The example given in TFA is bad. Red should never be the sole indicator of an
error. As you pointed out, color blindness is a thing.

The example should have also put an error glyph (like an exclamation point in
a triangle, or the local equivalent) next to the problematic number. Or
presented it in reverse, or with an unusually thick border. Anything but color
alone.

------
dictum
I feel like the author really wanted a scapegoat for a process that was flawed
from the start (redesigning a product without research, empathy with users,
feedback, gradual introduction with small test groups etc.)

Too often I see UX issues blamed on visual choices — the whole everything must
be flat movement of 2013-2018 is one example — when there are deeper issues
that can't be extracted into a pithy recommendation.

~~~
thirdsun
Exactly. Proper white spacing shouldn’t be the problem of any redesign.

Also consider that users often have a tendency to rebel against change. Habits
and routines are hard to overcome and the actual might be that features and
data simply aren’t in the same place they used to be, regardless of if that
new location is much more reasonable. I saw it again and again: Users memorize
hard-coded paths to certain functions - simply changing the name, appearance
or position of certain elements along that path was enough to throw them
completely off the track.

~~~
tabtab
No, you _don 't_ really need much white space. Use thick lines to show
boundaries. They do the job of visually segregating things without wasting
screen real-estate.

White-space became a "thing" because of the increased use of touch-screens,
such as iPads and smartphones. The space helps avoid fingering mistakes.
However, if the vast majority of users are using a keyboard and mouse, it's an
anti-feature. People started copying the trend without thinking about and
road-testing the practicalities of it. Unlike the Kardashians, science works.

~~~
thirdsun
White space has its purpose - grouping and the principle of proximity comes to
mind.

Of course this argument comes down to _how much_ white space is appropriate
and we may actually agree, but if you're indicating that the whole idea of
white space, and other Gestalt principles, is a fad, I think you're wrong.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think GP is just saying that white space is not the _only_ way to apply
Gestalt principles. There's hardly a clearer indication of which things belong
together than surrounding them with a border.

~~~
tabtab
That is true: there are multiple ways to visually split and group things.
Lines, space, color, and shadows come to mind; each with trade-offs.

A down-side of space for grouping is that it uses up screen real-estate and
can result in the need to scroll more. Scrolling not only takes up user time,
but makes it hard to compare information on the screen, because two or more
units of data may not be able to be on the screen at the same time.

For example, if you are entering employee info, and you get to the
"dependents" section, you may want to know if the dependents have the same
last name as the employee as a quick check of applicability. If the employee
name is at the top, then it may have scrolled off the screen by the time you
get to the dependents entry. In a more compact design, it's more likely both
will be on the screen at the same time.

------
kevindong
Another modern web design pattern that I hate is when a website uses an
excessive amount of AJAX requests. The practical effect of this behavior is
that you see the UI update many, many times before the data you're looking for
is actually shown. While the data is being loaded, you just see placeholders
and you don't feel like you should do anything until the entire page finishes
loading.

For instance, when I log into the Chase website, there's 8 UI updates (i.e. 8
sets of loading bars/HTTP requests; see below) that have to load before I can
see the recent transactions on my account. Each chunk of requests must finish
before the following chunk can start. All in all, it takes ~7.1 seconds for
the page/recent transactions to load.

\---

The 8 UI updates the Chase website goes through before it finishes loading/you
can see your recent transactions:

1\. Initial blue loading screen with a spinning loading icon

2\. Tan colored background color replaces screen #1

3\. Header loads

4\. The blank outlines of the main UI components loads (without any data in
them/with placeholder loading bars)

5\. All of my Chase account metadata (account type, current balance, and last
four digits of the account number) loads

6\. More in-depth data of the first account on the list loads (available
credit, payment due date, minimum payment due, etc.)

7\. Recent transactions panel starts to load (with no data/with only a
placeholder loading bar)

8\. Recent transactions are shown

At this point, the page is finished loading.

------
motohagiography
Was a PM for a product that got criticism for its lack of density. When you
are building a powerful tool for power users, you may need density and a lot
of levers for flexibility. The consumer/enterprise distinction is huge here.

As a domain expert, I was for a sparse UX that emphasized the awesome just-
works power of the product. I'll never forget how one bank IT director
customer said, "I just can't pay for something with this little on the screen.
Can you add more _stuff_?"

I think the key PM-fail on my part was privately scoffing to the architects
afterwards that while we reduced the whites pace, we should also implement the
ruby acts_as_enterprisey module to make the product seem crappier. This lack
of people insight (and downside of visionary personality type attitude) pretty
much summarized my limits as a PM.

Real lesson for us was: enterprise users trade on demonstrating their value by
performing complex work. It's job security. The stakeholders you need to close
an enterprise sale include those users. If your product or UX trivializes
someone's job, they are going to fight you.

When they say they don't want your UX but they want your data, what they are
really saying is, they don't need the problem you think you are solving
solved, they are indexed on finding a way to demonstrate their value.

I"m learning this the hard way now with a product that doesn't quite close the
knowledge gap for non-experts, but am finding it's simplicity is undermining
to the authority of experts. Solving problems and demonstrating value are very
different things. It's like building a tools vs. building instruments.

The UX question I need to answer is, does my product solve a problem, or help
a problem solver demonstrate value? If a) then the end user is not my
customer, if b) it's going to need a lot more knobs and whistles.

White space isn't just white space, it represents the expression of
functionality to the customer.

The UX design question always takes you back to first principles, who is your
customer and what do they need?

~~~
mruts
In my comment about the Bloomberg Terminal, I talked about how it, and any
good software (also like Vim and Emacs) makes users feel like a wizard.
People, especially enterprise banking users, want to feel powerful when using
an app. Like it’s an extension of their own mind and body.

If you make something that is valuable but doesn’t give the users a power
trip, it will fail. This is just how people work.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's not just about power trips. It's about utility and context.

Vim and Emacs give you _actual_ power, not just the feeling of it. Vim's
"shortcut grammar" and Emacs' deep interoperability are a huge productivity
multiplier for any imaginable task that you can reduce to manipulating text.

Information density is about providing context. A good example here would be
Google Maps. The app is optimized to be used as a point-to-point navigation
tool, but some design decisions - like inconsistent showing of street names -
make it pretty much useless as a _map_. Your UI design may be leading the user
down a prescribed path, but if you make it show the minimal amount of
information necessary on that path, the UI automatically becomes useless for
all other _related_ paths.

------
fermienrico
Am I the only one like dense information? There is judicious use of whitespace
(Swiss layout, Brockmann et. al) and then there is the whole material UX
enchilada.

I prefer Foobar2000 over Apple Music. Give me dense, logical and flat layout
over 50 page long hierarchical layout full of whitespace. Whitespace is tiring
when used extensively.

~~~
Mindwipe
Whitespace is toxic in design.

As a trend I can't wait for it to die in fire.

~~~
beaconstudios
it's a tool. As with many tools in our industry it has acquired hype, leading
it to be used in situations where it isn't appropriate. That doesn't detract
from the fact that there are appropriate cases for it.

------
maxxxxx
It seems a lot of UIs these days are designed for beginners instead of people
who know what they are doing. Someone’s this is OK but in a professional
conetwxt it often isn’t. I can’t even imagine if IDEs like Visual Studio were
designed “spacious” and “minimalistic”. It would look cute but you wouldn’t
get anything done. Some things are just complex and there is no way to design
that away without hurting productivity.

~~~
oblio
You can do it, but it requires tons and tons of effort. And even after all
that, you can't escape the backlash.

There's a great series by Jensen Harris, Office Program Manager, about how
they designed the Ribbon:
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2005/09/26/the-
why-...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2005/09/26/the-why-of-the-
new-ui-part-1-2/) (you can find the rest in his blog archives, unfortunately
the images are gone)

It was an incredibly complex undertaking, Microsoft did many studies, had
focus groups and the whole thing (Office after all, is a major business to
them, worth billions of dollars).

The end result was demonstrably better for the vast majority of users
(Microsoft had hard numbers to back their design decisions).

And yet if you read many of the comments on tech forums you'd think Microsoft
killed the users' puppies.

~~~
maxxxxx
I don’t know how they come up with the numbers but I still think that menus
and toolbars were much more discoverable and faster to use than the ribbon :)

~~~
int_19h
More importantly for power users, they were much more customizable.

~~~
oblio
They checked that and power users didn't customize that much. There's a lot of
studies that show that power users don't customize, since customizations are
not portable across PCs/systems in general.

I wasn't kidding when I said they went through a lot of numbers while
designing the ribbon (I read the whole blog archive at one point).

On top of that, the new UI is way more discoverable for new and intermediate
users. And at the end of the day, beginners are let's say 10% of the users,
intermediate users at various levels are probably something like 85% and power
users are probably only 5% ;)

------
alexbecker
Jira drives me nuts with this. I have a 34" monitor and with six columns in
our Kanban board I can see 4, maybe 5 tickets per column. With 10 people on a
team it means constant scrolling to see what people are working on.

It finally pushed me over the edge to use user stylesheets. A bunch of
"margin: 0 !important" and "display: none" and I get twice as much information
on my screen at the cost of... looking polished I guess?

------
mrhappyunhappy
The real lesson here is that the company tried to save money by hiring a
design agency instead of a UX designer who would have done the research to
understand the end user and their needs. Had that been done then the new
interface would be just as quick to use but with major improvements. Instead
of modernizing they should have asked how to design a product that’s even more
useful.

I see this problem all the time when I talk to companies. They hire a big
agency expecting big results and the agency rolls out the red carpet and does
everything they are asked. Both parties fail. The first question I ask when
someone asks me to design something for them is “why?” Most of the time the
response is way out of touch with the actual reason why you should ever
consider design. A real UX consultant will do 70% research, 30% design if they
offer that portion of the service which I do. Please don’t make the mistake of
assuming you know what you need. Find a UX designer not a UI designer and
listen for the hard questions- who is your customer? What problems are they
complaining to you with? What do you think this redesign will do for you?
These are just some of the basic questions you’ll be asked. Your consultant
will know your customer better than you when they are done before they touch
any designs, if they don’t do any of these things then walk away.

------
userbinator
Related and no doubt even as infuriating is the tendency to also decrease the
contrast of UI elements by, in addition to adding copious amounts of
whitespace, turning blacks into light greys. I remember one instance where an
internal website was "modernised" with a new stylesheet and panicking for
several minutes wondering if something was wrong with my eyes or monitor,
because everything looked faded and unclear in addition to the nauseating
effect of the sea of whitespace. My coworkers were just as repulsed by the
change, and after confirming with the department responsible that they were
not going to revert the change ("because we don't want to go back to old
stuff" \--- that's literally the explanation I was given), took several
minutes to come up with a user stylesheet and distribute it to everyone else
interested.

To this day I am still astounded that more than one person thought #BFBFBF is
a perfect colour for text on a white background.

~~~
titanomachy
Yikes, that's a contrast ratio of 1.84... well below the AA accessibility
guideline of 4.5 from webaim.org. I personally aim for about the AAA guideline
of 7 (about #595959 on a white background) since I appreciate the lower eye-
strain of slightly reduced contrast. I also like having the option to go
darker for emphasis.

Chrome developer tools now shows you the contrast ratio along with these
recommendations when you modify text colour.

~~~
userbinator
_since I appreciate the lower eye-strain of slightly reduced contrast_

I don't understand this --- it seems to be a recent trend, but if anything, it
causes _more_ eye strain. For many years full white/black was the norm, and no
one really complained. Perhaps it's because of monitors being set to max
brightness/contrast by default? IMHO FFFFFF/000000 should not be uncomfortable
to look at, and if it is, the brightness is probably too high.

------
seabird
Modern UI design is awful. It might work for Joe Moron, who is just scrolling
through video clips and short fragments of text, but I can't imagine why you
would ever try to apply design principles designed for that case to
professional users. Do people really think they can take the complexity out of
these inherently complex business systems? I'm not saying that everything has
to look like shit, but no amount of dumbing down an interface is going to fix
the fact that certain software needs to display an intimidating amount of
info, and that the learning curve for that software is going to be pretty
brutal.

I want to wake up from this nightmare. Software like Bloomberg Terminal and
CATIA doesn't need to be _beautiful web apps with clean, !minimal! Material
design_ , they need to tear through the issues they're meant to solve as
quickly and easily as possible, even the reality of that is a little ugly.

~~~
blueboo
Well, let's challenge ourselves: what is the best designed (digital) interface
with the deepest usability? Or some outstanding interfaces that square that
circle?

I'm familiar with 3d software suites, and they're (mostly) all highly-
configurable, permitting custom layouts, panels, toolbars, and even enabling
intermediate users to create UI tools.

To your point, they're also ferociously complicated for novices.

Bloomberg is a funny example. It's a well-indexed reference, rather than an
expressive tool, so mastering its shortcut-dense interface is an affordable
cost to professionals of modest technical sophistication.

I wonder if TurboTax is in the running; for all its blandness, in 2019 it's
exceedingly transparent and clear guide to doing an extremely complicated
task. I hasten to acknowledge that's hardly going to be a universal belief.

Maybe Gmail? But again the functionality is fairly shallow...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Gmail is a bad example. It's way too limited, very low-density in default
settings, and generally slow. Thunderbird would be better, but it's far from
the peak of what's possible. If you redesigned Thunderbird around the
principles of terminal or Emacs-based mail apps - in particular the keyboard-
first focus and high performance, with Thunderbird's rich content rendering,
then it would be much closer to e-mail perfection.

3D software suites like 3DS Max or Blender are perfect examples of software
that's a tool, not a toy. The learning curve is roughly proportional to the
breadth and complexity of the problem domain, so training is required, but the
software itself doesn't waste your time and patience with slow and low-density
UIs.

------
nate
A champion of data density who has a lot of thought provoking words on design
is Edward Tufte: [https://www.edwardtufte.com](https://www.edwardtufte.com)
Worth a look if you aren't familiar.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I literally had this discussion today at work. And then couple of weeks ago,
when I suggested we drop a bunch of chartjunk on our products' graphs. And
then some time earlier too.

Tufte talks about minimizing "chartjunk", maximizing "data ink", and being
comfortable with high information density. Charts are tools, and while they
may sometimes require some amount of effort to understand, they play to
humans' strengths like scanning and pattern matching. I think Tufte got this
very right, and it generalizes well to user interfaces.

------
lolsal
> In the above example, note the prominence of the single red highlight in the
> gray-themed table, thanks to the lack of other color. Each row suffers
> slightly in its horizontal scannability, but at the gain of increased table-
> wide scannability. Consider what is more important for your application.

For what it's worth, I found the blue table easier to spot the red numbers.
I'm red/green colorblind and I could not differentiate the red from the grey
table coloring very well. With the blue it stood out.

------
michaelbuckbee
Never underestimate the power of a data entry person working in a high volume
organization with an app that looks like it was designed in 1975.

I worked on a potential redesign of the US Navy's medical appointment booking
application and the data entry rate and responsiveness of their "ancient"
system was far superior to the newly proposed solution (web based).

~~~
protomyth
I've watched in amazement as a person slammed through green-screen after
green-screen to enter data while the new "more productive" GUI interface took
everyone 10 times as long. Worse, the damn GUI actually required a longer on-
boarding period for the new employees.

I miss companies like Palm that had a person who counted the taps to get
something done.

------
nulagrithom
> Users absolutely hated the new system.

I feel like this is a universal absolute, doubly so when it comes to
enterprise apps (the lone exception being when we switched from Lotus Notes to
Gmail -- then only half the company hated the change).

I would've liked to know how long the changes were in place and how it
affected productivity metrics, especially the amount of training time spent on
new users. As is, the article seems kind of obvious. Enterprise users abhor
change; who knew?

> Just like you wouldn’t appreciate a dictionary with only 10 words per page
> (so many pages to flip through!)

This also makes me question the veracity of the article. It's a really
terrible metaphor that makes me wonder if they were _solely_ concerned with
pretty design on the outset.

I want a dictionary that shows me 1 word per page, with a search bar. The page
flipping functionality is useless and can be removed entirely. It's a bad
workflow.

I can definitely say that over the past 20 years, our in-house LoB app has
developed some really bad workflows as well (business changes a lot over 20
years). Removing these bad workflows would give us back a ton of screen real
estate without losing productivity.

The causality is backwards. I don't want to create whitespace by changing the
design and ruining the functionality. I want to change the functionality which
will create more whitespace and allow room for beautiful design.

~~~
frosted-flakes
He's talking about a dead tree dictionary, not a piece of software. While I
largely agree with you, adding a search bar to a book isn't possible.

~~~
JoshuaDavid
You can come surprisingly close with indexes and glossaries.

------
adventured
The author writes a solid article, makes good points, then blows the
conclusion.

It's not "function over form, always"

It's function _with_ form, always. They're properly inseparable when building
a product. They aren't separate things such that one should ever be over
another, or that one should ever suffer to the other. You consider the product
and match the function and form together to that product's needs.

It should never be function over form, or form over function. They work
together in unison to be one: simpatico. The function isn't separate from the
form, the form isn't separate from the function. The necessary end result
product can only exist with both, as such they necessarily inform and
cooperate with each other at all times.

The flawed approach described in the article, was form over function, which is
the identical _conceptual_ mistake to function over form. It's the mistake of
ever considering the two to be separate or to ever elevating one over the
other.

If a high density information presentation approach is the best form, that's
not function over form. That's the proper form for the function of the
product. That means the two are working together - neither is elevated - to
deliver the best combined form + function for the product in question and its
specific needs.

------
errantmind
I have worked with many teams at large companies where clunky applications,
usually just database facades / CRUD, have been in place. In almost every case
these 'database interfaces' never fully satisfy the users' needs.

Instead, I have found much success in slowly deprecating these applications
and, instead, giving these users direct read-only access to the database and
teaching them SQL. SQL is not a tool only for 'technical' people. Most of
these users have mastered the 'dark arts' of Excel so they are capable of
learning other tooling. These users can then query the data in any way they
want and export it in any way they want. There is more to this, like ensuring
to only give them access to reporting databases. The application then can
focus on being an interface for updates / writes and not for data exploration.

------
hindsightbias
If someone in the UX space wants to change the world, start a twitch stream
and review websites/apps.

I have several scratch-my-eyes-out sites I use every week for fodder and am
sure you would never lack for suggestions.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Maybe I’ll take you up on it. Give me a list of sites you want reviewed.

------
kareemm
> What’s the lesson here?

> A large business by its nature has massive-scale data and usually thousands
> of users who directly interact with it—searching, manipulating, reporting,
> and more. They need to move through that data quickly, without a lot of
> digging around in the interface.

The lesson here is actually that the designer didn't understand the context in
which customers were using the app.

It sounds like s/he didn't talk to customers about how and why they use the
app, or show wireframes to them, or even sit and watch them use it for an
hour.

If they had done any of the above, they would have had a lot more context
about what a good solution __looked and felt __like.

------
oneeyedpigeon
There really needs to be a different term for 'visual' white space and \s+. I
can't be the only one who was expecting a tale of python/makefile woes.

------
stronglikedan
We use an enterprise MIS and the developers just did this very thing to us.
When I reported it, they just said to decrease the zoom level in the browser.
Of course, they blew me off when I asked how that reduced the ratio of
whitespace to data, which leads me to believe they're in denial of the
problem. Just to reiterate some sentiments already expressed here, "Spacious.
Minimalist. Clean." is great for consumer/entertainment/etc. apps, but you can
pry my data-density from my cold, dead hands when it comes to business apps
where real work needs to get done.

------
mcnichol
Sounds like UX failure.

A large part of design is incorporating obvious workflows from non-obvious
systems.

User testing, iterative development, some type of strong feedback loop are all
tools we leverage to combat this outcome.

I understand why the title was used but it really falls short in highlighting
just how critical and valuable UX is as part of the development process.

It isn't just these stylish hipsters building art on storyboards which is what
I am arguing your title implies....its about UX bridging the user with the
developer as well ensuring their voice is not only heard but can drive the
process.

------
godelski
I think another lesson to learn is "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". I think
we all have used apps where we got used to one thing and then there's a UI
design that changes everything.

As an example that really has no major impact (but I think illustrates subtle
changes), I got mad with the Android 9 update. The number one thing I was mad
about was the clock placement. Every previous generation it had been placed in
the upper right. Since 9 it moved to the top left (same as iPhones). Problem
being that Android literally trained the userbase to look in a specific area
for that feature and then moved it. Sure, I know where to look now, but I
still frequently look at the top right first.

Feature changes like this I don't understand. I can't understand how it would
be a significant factor in converting users (which in this case the platform
had majority market share) and also results in confusing (rightly so) the
existing userbase.

Not working in UI I see them a lot like QC (but with more work to do). If
everything is working perfectly QC should have nothing to do. Just like if
your UI is good then it shouldn't be changed. I don't understand this "need"
to always change things. Sure, there are legit reasons to do so (just like QC
_NEEDS_ to exist (for the love of god don't get rid of QC)), but I see a lot
of changes that happen that don't make things easier and appear (from the user
side) to just be change for the sake of change.

------
zackham
This reminds me of those older systems that had a learning curve, where
employees were trained in them, but they were efficient to use. Navigation was
all keyboard-based, making extensive use of the function keys. You'd be
talking to an employee and while they were using the system, they'd be
confident and hitting all kinds of memorized keys to jump around and look up
parts or orders or whatever. As those systems get replaced with more
"intuitive" web-based UIs, where navigation is done with a mouse, and they are
sold with the prospect that there isn't much of a learning curve, it seems
there are more folks that don't get to that level of confidence and
efficiency. Maybe it's due to lack of training, or the software isn't designed
for efficient use, or web-based UIs tending to change more frequently, or the
backend systems being less responsive and reliable... I'm not sure. But it
sure feels like I encounter more people saying "well the system isn't doing
what I want it to do today" or "let me just figure this out I'm not seeing it
here". I like seeing software empower people, not make them feel inferior, so
hopefully it's a temporary trend. Or maybe my view is just skewed through the
lens of nostalgia. I hope I never see the day when grocery store checkers have
to fumble through an ill thought out web-based UI...

------
lowercased
> See where you might reduce visual complexity by combining elements — for
> example, by putting a customer’s first and last name in the same field.

Great, until people want to sort/filter by stuff that is now crammed in to one
field. Sort by state? Sorry - it's now "city/state/country/postalcode"

Some people will want things one way, some will want it another, and you'll be
tasked with making it work "both ways" \- just add a checkbox to check to
switch how it works. How hard can it be, right?

~~~
darkpuma
> putting a customer’s first and last name in the same field.

This can also present unexpected difficulties for people who's "first name"
contains a space. It will appear as though that unified field contains their
middle name too, which it might, but the customer might be using their middle
name as a de facto part of their first name in systems such as on their credit
card.

------
atoav
You can get a beautiful fast and dense interface if you want one. But then you
need someone to actually _design_ it for you.

Most design that happens today is actually _Styling_ rather than design: you
just slap some framework on everything select some colours, apply some layout
patterns and call it a day. Maybe you “go wild“ with some minor detail and are
proud for beeing a rebel.

Like with architects who like to use glas and wide open spaces everywhere,
regardless of social use, this is what divides really good designers from
mostly ok designers.

Design is not finding the same clean, minimal look for everything, but looking
at every interface that has been designed (including physical interfaces) and
asking the question what is appropriate. And let’s face it: sometimes your
design is worse than the unstyled browser default or the “readability mode”.

Design should be a lot of work, but like always you don’t pay an expert just
to get it done, tou pay them for their experience, their knowlede and their
ability to treat your project the way it deserves to be treated. This takes a
little longer, but the iconic minimal designs everybody and their grandmother
knows (Rams Braun radio for example), were 90% thought and the rest was
styling and technical problems to be solved.

If you have a chance, please hire someone for actually thinking about a design
and critically analyzing things they try out — this is were all great usable
designs come from. If it looks modern as a side effect, so be it. Give them
somebody who knows all hairy technical implementation details as a side kick
and you are good to go

------
alex_c
This is exactly how I feel about FreshBooks’ redesign last(?) year. Sure, it
looks a lot prettier and I assume discoverability is better for first time
users, but it feels overly dumbed down, information density is much lower, and
common tasks take longer with more friction.

There is always some resistance to change at first, but over time I’ve only
grown more frustrated with it rather than getting used to it, to the point
where I’m starting to evaluate alternatives now.

------
sodosopa
This is where user research would have saved time and money. Rework is
expensive so is slowing down staff. Usability testing would have determined
this prior to launch.

~~~
jaredwiener
It also sounds like they didnt understand the user's needs. A little user
research at the beginning would have highlighted what information was needed,
with the time constraints.

~~~
boudin
Indeed. Usually the number of actions to get to something or do something is a
big part of UX. It becomes critical when the software is a tool used for
repetitive tasks. This sounds like a project where the users haven't been
involved at all, I'm surprised it wasn't noticed earlier.

------
ThomPete
Its important to distinguish between apps that have super users and then apps
which is really just for consumption. Super users apps might have features
that if you use them once in a while it doesent matter if they are a little
more cumbersome if in exchange you get a cleaner and easier to understand
interface, the problem arises when clean gets to trump feature and
functionality which is used all the time.

------
gdgtfiend
In my opinion the lesson to be learned here is not design related, but
requirements related. Gather your requirements from your users before you
implement a change, otherwise you're just working off of assumptions, and
that's just bad practice.

If you have Product Management the failure was on them for not driving the
customer need. Also, this is not me just scapegoating PM... it's actually what
I do

------
keiferski
This article reminds me of Japanese web design and how _dense_ it is. It's
almost a bit like the 'western' web when Craigslist was first launched.
Ultradense, kind of ugly, but extremely utilitarian.

[https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-
differe...](https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/)

------
mrfredward
There is a certain irony in reading about wasted screen space on Medium. That
uncloseable banner on the bottom is driving me a bit crazy.

~~~
arkitaip
If you use uBlock Origin or compatible ad blocker, you can remove most Medium
nonsense across all domains by adding these filters:

##.overlay-dialog

##.overlay

##.u-fixed

##.metabar

------
ASpring
The real problem here is the lack of UX Research that went into designing the
new interface. All of this could have been foreseen before the design project
even started.

The whole point of UX research is to avoid expensive
redesigns/features/products that users don't want. It is future oriented and
pays for itself tenfold in avoided missteps in the product lifecycle.

------
briandear
The author suggests Google’s “Material” but in my experience, Google has it
wrong compared to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. For example, Google
hides stuff behind icons with no text. Unless you already know the UI, you are
hunting around for what you need (remember screensharing on Google Hangouts?)
On Apple’s apps, icons always come with a text label and rarely are things
hidden behind unnamed icons. Google also seems to be changing UI constantly.
Material Design is terrible — it’s the very essence of the problems being
mentioned in this article. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines also address
accessibility far better than Material design. Maybe it’s me, but it does feel
like there are camps when it comes to UI: the Material Design side and those
that care about usability for people that don’t spend their time in the
Googleverse.

~~~
woogiewonka
Google UX in general is atrocious. They keep changing the format on every
product so you never know where to look. The use of dark patterns is
especially horrible. I don't know if what they do is on purpose terrible, or
someone just failed at their job, but Google and material design in apps is
particularly bad at doing things for the user. Any time someone references
Google or some other large corporation and say "see, they are doing it this
way" I want to slap them.

------
DenisM
The typical person making a purchase decision doesn't know what the app does
in any detail. So if he sees less information on screen he thinks it's easier
to use, as compared to more information on screen. Of course the opposite is
normally true, which is where the trouble starts. It also looks similar to
simple consumer apps that the decision-maker is used to. Finally the UX
designer says magic words like "clean" and "simple" and "focused" and
"beautiful" and the sale is made.

The lesson here is to find way to counteract this. User engagement metrics
would be the last line of defense. Earlier than that maybe small focus groups.

But something is already lost by the time we got here - we're not on the same
page wrt what is important and what are the criteria. I'm open to suggestions
here.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
You are confusing UX designer with UI designer. UX designer does not use words
such as clean and simple or beautiful that’s the talk of someone who does no
user research which is precisely what UX designers focus on primarily.

------
alan_n
I don't really agree about the merging of information (the rest is fine). In
the example, what happens if you want to sort by state or zip (assuming they
are sortable)? The upgrade is really just a downgrade functionality wise in
that case. This is something I find happens time and time again, an app will
get redesigned and lose functionality to look simpler. It might not be the
case here if it doesn't need to allow sorting, but I hate that general
trend/idea.

There are better ways to have less crowded information (custom optional
columns), that doesn't remove functionality. Also the more flexible a UI, imo,
the better, so long as the flexibility does not increase complexity too much
and it's obvious (if the setting for the columns is hidden in some obscure
place, it's useless).

~~~
mcbits
Merging fields for display doesn't preclude sorting by the merged fields,
which may or may not be trivial depending on the UI libraries being used. But
if the user wants to sort by state, it's worth finding out why. Is it so they
can "simply" scroll down 50 pages to the Louisiana customers in order to print
out a screenshot and fax it to the Louisiana office?

~~~
alan_n
That's true, I just feel the example is a bit dangerous. It could be really
good advice in one context and really bad in another.

Also sorting a table is rarely more complex than filtering the data by some
property, and although I avoid UI libraries, I can't think how one could get
in the way.

------
woogiewonka
It blows my mind that to date we have major companies who put forward horrible
UX. Few come to mind off the top of my mind: Chase, PayPal, Digital Ocean.
Trying to get statements from Chase is like playing ping pong. Webflow,
Freshbooks, all major offenders.

------
vermooten
I worked at a company whose name begins with K ... exactly this happened. The
'old' UI was an ASP nightmare from the early 2000s but it contained all that
the users loved. The new thing never took off, despite the CTO putting his job
on the line for it.

Another company had a green-screen nightmare from the 1980s replaced by some
mouse-driven mofre modern UI - ditto. The users could easily naviate with
arrow keys, tabs, function keys. It was FAST. The new UI, and it's even newer
HTML replacement, both needed the mouse.

Hard to sell and 2002 nightmare or a green-screen to a prospective client -
but they LUURRRRVE a cool modern Angular UI, but the people who buy thing
thing aren't the ones who have to use it.

~~~
scarejunba
What's a "green-screen" in this context? Like a terminal app old school style?

~~~
tingletech
yea, most old terminals had black and green CRTs; or black and amber. For some
reason the ambers were still called "green screens".

------
sccxy
It is very common problem for UX experts who haven't worked on big
enterprise/data-rich applications before.

------
z3t4
There are tradeoffs when designing for _first time use_ vs _repeated use_. And
also between simple and powerful. Like a GUI vs a Terminal. Or keyboard
shortcuts vs Menu. A user configurator vs a cad program. Or when it comes to
game design - first time vs replay vs endgame. Maybe Ux designers can be
inspired by games - designed for engame (multiplayer) but with campaigns with
a progressive difficulty ...

~~~
TeMPOraL
That would be great. Each game usually features its own weird UI, with unique
shortcuts, half-broken controls and plenty of design experiments - and yet
users don't have any problem with learning all of this. A lesson for the UX
people that users aren't as dumb as it's often said.

------
sandebert
This could have been written about the redesigned user panel for gandi.net.
The old one looked like Windows 95, but it was very usable. The new one seems
to be made as a lifestyle site for mobile users on the go. So not me. I
emailed them my concerns, as a good customer and citizen. Didn't get a
response, why would they bother? So I voted with my wallet and migrated all my
domains.

------
aroberge
> Are there things my users really don’t need to see right now?

Yes, what about the ridiculous amount of space taken by the header and footer
on that page.

------
kabacha
Oh the irony of posting this on medium. On my laptop the content is merely 30%
of the screen - there's a big banner, pop up, and big footer. To boot to that
60% of width is dead white space too. I'm excited to see the death a
frankenstein medium.com has become - it's completely unreadable without
postprocessing extensions.

------
arendtio
I don't think the root problem is white space.

Taking the dictionary example: A good dictionary doesn't display a hundred
words per page. Instead, you just need a box to write down the word you search
and a few lines to display the results. Plenty of space for the designer to
turn white.

The problem is somewhere in the process where someone creates an app without
having experience with the old system and not understanding how the app is
supposed to be used. It is quite common that UX designers do not have that
kind of knowledge, but then they have to make sure to include people who have
it (workshops, interviews, prototype testing, etc.).

I am not saying that white space is always good the way it is used today, but
the problem isn't a clean look. The problem is a dysfunctional design and the
process that caused it.

~~~
frosted-flakes
The quote about dictionaries refers to paper dictionaries, does it not?

~~~
arendtio
Well, the paper dictionary is one implementation of a dictionary.
Conceptionally, a (language) dictionary is a tool to translate words from one
language to another. When you implement it, you have to take into account what
you can do to make this tool as useful as possible for your user.

Since traditional paper can't change what is written on it, you are a bit
limited and simply write down the database in an ordered way to help the user
find what he needs.

On electronic screens the concept can be implemented in a better way, so doing
it exactly the same way as on paper would be a bad design.

So discussing a given design without looking back to the concept that should
be implemented, will often bring you just to a local, but not to a global
optimum.

------
kwhitefoot
In the "Use color deliberately" paragraph the table has a column of numbers
that are left justified. This makes comparing adjacent rows very awkward. The
should be right justified. This is such a simple thing to get right yet it is
nonetheless very common that it is done wrong.

------
godshatter
I think interfaces should be constrained to match the specifications of your
input devices and screens. If your users use a mouse, then dense windows with
lots of check boxes and radio buttons is usable, and probably preferred. If
your users might interact with fingers on a tablet or phone, then you need
more space around things to make it easier on the user.

I've never been a fan of trying to build one interface that works for all
systems. It sounds great in theory, but in the end you are left with
everything at the level best suited for the least capable system. Same goes
for games, by the way. If you see I'm using a mouse and a keyboard, present me
a different interface than if I'm using a controller.

~~~
frosted-flakes
What if I'm using a mouse, keyboard, _and_ a touch screen? Like my laptop,
when sometimes it's just easier to jab the screen.

------
soneca
I am building an enterprise-y software (a 1:1 meeting app[0]) and, not being a
designer or UX expert, I am taking some chances with the design.

I am using a dark background and I am aiming for a design heuristic where
everything of common use is reachable with scroll and 1 click. It becomes a
long page the more meetings and notes you had. This does not leave much space
for white space.

I am also being bold on the use of colors to differentiate where the user is
while among all that scrolling.

I am not sure I am right in any of my choices, but this article makes me think
I am on the right path. Even if we have different instances on scrolling

[0] [https://www.oneonemeeting.com](https://www.oneonemeeting.com)

~~~
frosted-flakes
Your website needs a little bit more ...ahem... whitespace. Text that is tight
to the edge of the screen is unpleasant to read. Meanwhile, I glanced at a
couple of the screenshots and noticed they need a lot _less_ whitespace,
especially vertically.

~~~
soneca
Thanks for the feedback. I agree with the site.

I am not so sure about the less whitespace on the application. There is an
"accordion" feature at those lists you saw that - I believe - fit well with
taller rows. A lot of space to click is good. But maybe cutting 2px might help
indeed

------
jimbobimbo
This quote (below) reminded me a story...

    
    
        “There should be a minimum amount of furniture (rules, boxes, dots, and other guide rails for traveling through the typographic space) and a maximum amount of information.”
    
        – Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style
    

A company I know of, had rolled out major UX changes in their bug tracking
system. One of the changes was complete removal of all borders on text boxes
on bug entry screens. Imagine a page filled with text boxes, with not a single
clue of where they are except labels above them. Users literally revolted. The
change ended up becoming an option just for that company.

------
supermw
I see this all the time. It is a symptom of blowhard UX designers who don't
understand there's a difference between mass consumer and enterprise app
design. They look at a shitty looking enterprise interface and snort _" I can
make this so much better! Let me introduce you to Material design!"_

If you want to make pretty little apps that get you tons of likes on Dribbble
or whatever, go make consumer apps.

When it comes to enterprise apps boring is beautiful. I'm talking dense data
displays, esoteric shortcuts, NO optimistic saving behaviors, etc. Everything
that classical consumer app designers hate. The point of an enterprise app is
all business.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
Correction: UI designer. I wish developers would stop grouping them into one
category, totally different fields.

~~~
supermw
You're right. It's like when people lump IT and Software Engineers together. I
should have said UI.

------
Cenk
>Consider using monospaced numbers when comparing digits between rows matters.

For the love of god don’t only consider it, actually use tabular numbers in
any context where the number is not part of a sentence or something similar.

------
NearAP
>>>> Users absolutely hated the new system. Sure, the old system was ugly, but
it had everything they needed, right at their fingertips!<<<<

I understand this but before agreeing to this, I think one should look at the
issue of "change management". By default, people resist change. Once you get
used to something, it is difficult to adapt to a new one (even if it is
better). If the UI is "really bad", then it should definitely be changed but
this should be done in tandem with change management (lots of training, slow
cut-over to the new system, etc).

------
jarym
Have to agree with this. Too many times I've seen UX people brought in who see
the ONLY path to simplification as removing things /they/ don't perceive as
necessary. They're flat out wrong - you can simplify also by using the
suggestions mentioned in this article.

Sometimes the strategy pays off. But for enterprise apps with high information
density it often doesn't. New systems end up lacking essential features just
because a few people who never needed to use the original system (and would
not need to use the new one either) end up stripping things away.

------
jspash
And PLEASE don’t break the keyboard with your bespoke (buggy) reinvention of
html. Specifically Ctrl-F and the back button. Oh, and <select>s. I could go
on but it’ll just make me sound grumpy.

------
pard68
I rewrote 12k Powershell application for a previous job. Thing was ugly, full
of errors, but they had been using it forever.

Turned it into a webapp. It didn't last three weeks. The users didn't want
change. My app was able to increase speed by about 10%, management wanted it.
But the guys in the call center didn't like it. Unlike the redesign in this
article, I spent a year using that Powershell app and was very familiar with
how it was used and its shortcomings.

There is something to be said for just wanting the status quo.

------
metaphor
> _A large business by its nature has massive-scale data and usually thousands
> of users who directly interact with it—searching, manipulating, reporting,
> and more. They need to move through that data quickly, without a lot of
> digging around in the interface._

The challenge strikes me as less handwaving assertions of what "large
business" ops is about, more understanding user needs and capturing intent
with a UI that balances productivity and experience.

------
TimMurnaghan
> Look at Material’s Updates No! If you're thinking about your enterprise
> application like an android app then you're starting in the wrong place.

------
vectorEQ
remember a guy who worked in some fany BLUE in basic developed application for
accounting on his dosbox windows xp. he wanted a new tool, he had a bunch of
web apps made for him, but all the time he hit the simple fact, that page
refreshes and lack of keybindings made his work incredibly tedious and slow.

Made a curses implementation of his old application so he could work full
speed with the exact same interface and keys. a modern implementation of his
oldskool app, so he could finally ditch dosbox and windows xp for a more
modern operating system. happy chap after that, he wondered why people even
use web UIs for local things.

funny lesson in that 'modern' doesn't mean 'fancy', just like in this case.
you can modernise something and not make it fancy, that is what they wanted.
this guy made it fancy, which is useless.

i try to tell people (hard to hear for IT people i know) that internal
applications are not 'user apps' in the same sense a website is. so they
should be treated differently as well. if you would ask the users what they
want before redesigning the thing they use for hours a day i'm sure such
mistake can be prevented.

------
bachmeier
I'm somewhat in the minority, but I like plain html that puts the right stuff
in the right place way better than an unnecessarily designed masterpiece.

~~~
someguydave
I agree, aesthetics have no place in an information processing environment.
The emphasis should be on interface latency and predictability.

------
codereflection
This reminds me that I should go back and re-read "Don't Make Me Think". So
many of these things seem obvious, but only when pointed out.

------
manigandham
This is everywhere, not just enterprise. Take a look at craigslist and how
every attempt to make it "pretty" has failed. Many successful products are
focused on getting things done, even if they're exceedingly ugly in doing so.

There seems to be a lack of education and experience in teaching designers
that UI != UX and what design really means is helping users reach goals, not
just looking nice.

------
billyt555
For any UI that has long running power users, however complicated, the users
will over time memorize how the screens look and operate. It doesn't matter
how 'intuitive' the redesign is because you will have broken their rote
patterns - and the user has to rethink how they use the software, often at
every turn. In the high paced environment of a call center this is simply
untenable.

------
su8898
Speaking of data intensive applications, I find it really hard to design a
complex UI with popular frameworks such as bootstrap/antd because of the
amount of padding/white space in input/select/row/column components. Always
have to adjust the CSS/LESS/SAAS/whatever to get to an optimal amount of
whitespace.

------
guelo
Everybody says the designer should learn the user's workflow. But for complex
workflows the designer is not going to learn everything they need to know. I
think the other way around is better: let the users tweak the design. UX isn't
that hard to learn or understand, especially for industrial systems where
aesthetics are not important.

------
rossdavidh
For every case where there is excessive whitespace, I see 10x where there is
way too much clutter, and not a single place where one can click (for example,
to bring the browser's window back into focus) without activating something.
This sounds like a problem of not talking to your users enough, not a problem
of too much whitespace.

~~~
nottorp
Click? Those people don't have time to click, they use the keyboard.

------
lunchables
I think the problem stems from the responsive designs that were used to build
really slick sites for marketing purposes. Everyone wants to apply the same
aesthetic to what are really software applications running in your browser.
These are very different things and should not follow the same design
guidelines.

------
funkaster
I think that this is more of a tale of not doing proper user research. If
they've done their homework, they would know what data users of the platform
need at their fingertip, and they wouldn't have hide it behind clickable-
collapsable UIs.

My take on this: work with a PM that's really good at doing (proper) user
research.

------
asadkn
Speaking of not understanding the users while redesigning, anyone remember
Digg?

Digg's downfall started with a redesign:
[https://www.fastcompany.com/1690829/digg-redesigns-loses-
mor...](https://www.fastcompany.com/1690829/digg-redesigns-loses-more-quarter-
audience)

------
coding123
After reading the comments I'm left thinking maybe everyone wants dense
information. This is not just Enterprise.

------
Tepix
The local bank office used to have text terminals (ok, this is a long time
ago).

I distinctly remember that they got _much_ slower at getting work done when
they switched to a colorful GUI.

They did not switch back to the text terminals. If you deal with processes
that don't change much, it's a questionable decision.

~~~
Khoth
Yes, terminals could be a lot faster.

A major advantage that often seemed to be overlooked in the rush from
terminals to web pages is that if you pressed a key that took you to the next
screen, your next keypresses would be queued up and they'd go into the next
screen when it was ready. So if workers were following a familiar process,
there was often zero latency when changing screens because they could just
start typing into the box they knew was going to appear.

Web based things made this worse because you have to actually wait for the new
page to load before you can start typing.

~~~
someguydave
it's even worse when you consider that modern computers are much slower than
an apple 2e: [https://danluu.com/input-lag/](https://danluu.com/input-lag/)

------
KaiserPro
The example where the author takes a row of address data and merges the
columns, with the caption: "easier to scan"

No, its really not. Anyone with a hint of dyslexia or similar will not forgive
you for merging cells together.

Its just not easier to scan. What would have made it easier? first name first.

------
ilovecaching
This person has it all wrong. If there are too many nobs and too much data for
a person to comprehend, then it means you need more automation. The people who
complained about the GUI are the people who will probably lose their jobs in
the next decade to machine learning.

------
xbryanx
I think about this every time I watch some physician friends using Epic or any
Electronic Health Records system. Those things are dense as hell and packed
full of data and utility. You won't see a bit of wasted space. Different
problems require different solutions.

~~~
tlrobinson
> You won't see a bit of wasted space

Ahem...

"How Medical Tech Gave a Patient a Massive Overdose"
[https://medium.com/backchannel/how-technology-led-a-
hospital...](https://medium.com/backchannel/how-technology-led-a-hospital-to-
give-a-patient-38-times-his-dosage-ded7b3688558)

> Do you spot the problem? Perhaps not, since it is hiding in the middle of
> this dense screen,

(that quote is from part 2 of the series of posts)

Of course that's not the only reason this incident occurred, but it likely
contributed to it.

------
gwbas1c
I think the best way to sum this up is: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

------
ElijahLynn
Was there any usability testing done on this throughout the entire design
process? I don’t see the word “test” in the article mentioned once.

Seems like the process is what failed here. Maybe there was zero feedback loop
between the creator and the consumer?

------
udkl
This is exactly the Google plus vs Facebook argument I've been making over the
years. 'Plus', with all it's white spacing was arguably ugly and this was also
why it had low user retention that led to it's demise.

------
kaolti
Absolutely nothing to do with whitespace and everything to do with a broken UX
workflow.

~~~
20years
That was my thought too.

"Sure, the old system was ugly, but it had everything they needed, right at
their fingertips!"

"They didn’t have time to click or scroll to find information while the clock
was literally ticking."

Sounds more like they added way more friction in the new design. Users now had
to click multiple areas to fill out everything they needed which slows down
work flow.

------
rkho
> It used progressive disclosure to hide presumably insignificant information.

This is the line that shocked me the most, emphasis on the word _presumably_.
It comes off as a decision being made without any sort of objective data
behind it.

------
leroy_masochist
Usually when I hear that something "killed an app" I think "software stopped
working", not "users didn't like the new look".

To be clear this is a "users didn't like the new look" story.

~~~
Tepix
It sounds like they weren't nearly as productive.

------
savrajsingh
Sounds like a classic “throw it over the wall” redesign without getting input
on how users experience the current application. Great recommendations in the
article though — loved the address readability example.

------
AlexandrB
Ironically not listed as a solution: use skeuomorphism.

Skeuomorphic interfaces, for all their pitfalls, are good at visually
separating interface elements for quick comprehension without requiring
mountains of whitespace.

------
HumanDrivenDev
If the "UX collective" thinks that site is what user experience should be,
then I think it's time for a military coup. It's really hard to read.

------
jdhn
I find it quite telling that no major takeaway mentioned talking to users or
testing the design. This reeks of genius design, which really isn't genius at
all.

------
rkagerer
I'm very opinionated on this, and I can't stand the way modern UI has no
respect whatsoever for my valuable pixel real estate.

------
anigbrowl
The author seems to have completely missed the lesson that designers should
get buy in from the people who actually use the tool, or at the very least
should be required to use their own design under realistic conditions. If you
just want to apply design principles and not worry about whether your work is
accessible, stick to fine art. I feel no sympathy for the designer in this
scenario, s/he deserved to fail.

------
sigi45
Someone wasn't good in there job. UX also means to understand the user.

High density data in good looking is still possible.

------
radicaldreamer
This is exactly what happened with the Withings app after the Nokia
acquisition

------
SubiculumCode
The harder to scan example was easier than the east to scan example, for me.

------
m463
Sounds like iOS 7, which threw out a lot of bathwater and babies.

------
zapzupnz
White space didn't kill the app. A lack of adequate analysis, interviewing,
and user testing killed it. Let's be clear about this; design trends in
themselves aren't the issue, it's their improper usage.

------
Piskvorrr
TL;DR: 1. Design for design 2\. Wilfully ignore business requirements in favor
of visual groupthink 3\. Feign surprise when your brand-new, byoo-tiful and
oh-so-modern app is unusable, blame your tools

