Should business apps be pretty?
While consumers benefit from the slew of new, user friendly applications delivered by the Web 2.0 companies, business users are stuck in a world where ease of use and aesthetics is hardly considered. This at least in the view of the article by Will Sturgeon:
David Girourard, SVP of enterprise at Google, claimed a major difference is that business software has seldom been designed with an end user in mind, whereas consumer technologies are only as good as the demand they can create by being desirable to end users.
Then:
He added: “Innovation is happening in the consumer world. Enterprise software is entirely bereft of soul. It is designed for business not for humans.”
However, he added that there is no reason why business apps should not address issues such as simplicity, pleasure or even aesthetics.
Do business users need to enjoy the applications that they are, after all, obliged to use anyway? Would this add value? Answers aside, selling this idea to the system guys might be a different story.
