Summary
Enterprise UX is incredibly complex and nuanced. Robert Reimann is the Senior Manager, UX Design at athenahealth, and in his talk at EUX 2017 he discusses how to improve the enterprise software user experience.
Key Insights
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Enterprise software often prioritizes corporate goals over people goals, harming user experience.
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Complexity in designing enterprise systems is passed on to users due to lack of effective modeling tools.
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Personas in enterprise UX require two tiers: broad role-based and detailed module-specific variants.
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Non-user personas like customers and served personas are crucial in enterprise product design, especially in healthcare.
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Data ecology and activity sequence models help visualize how data flows across roles in complex workflows.
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Organizational models incorporating both formal structures and informal culture are critical for matching software to business needs.
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Companies evolve through organizational phases impacting software requirements, as described by Larry Griner's growth model.
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Organizational culture types—clan, ad-hocracy, hierarchy, market—dictate which enterprise tools will succeed.
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Concept maps excellently represent complex objects and relationships in enterprise systems, aiding clarity.
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System models translate technical engineering details into human-readable diagrams facilitating stakeholder alignment.
Notable Quotes
"Enterprise systems, let’s just call them a work in progress."
"The complexity of enterprise software ends up getting passed along to users because we don’t have good tools for taming it."
"Personas are the sweet spot for enterprise UX because they help understand what users are trying to do and how to structure functions."
"Non-user personas, like the people served by the system who never touch it, are super important especially in healthcare."
"Data ecology models show where information is produced, where it’s consumed, and how it’s passed along."
"If your enterprise system is not matched well with the company’s DNA, it’s going to lead to malaise and it’s not going to be a good match."
"Organizational culture can determine what the best set of tools are for an organization."
"Concept maps are basically webs of terms connected by verbs to represent complex concepts."
"System models provide alignment across departments by expressing mechanics in human-readable ways above database level."
"Two-tiered personas help prioritize both broad and detailed system behaviors to address user goals and variants."
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