What HR Needs to Know About UI and UX
Digitalization has brought about a drastic change in people's requirements with technology. This is no different at the work environment. Applications that are simple and intuitive are key. The right user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) allows businesses to provide such applications to their employees. UI refers to the visual aesthetics, elements such as icons for smartphones, tablets, web, or even smart watches. UX, on the other hand, has more to do with all the things affecting a user's interaction with the product itself, it is about designing experience for the users. UX is both a mixture of art and science rooted in design engineering disciplines such as persona and scenario driven design. If well developed, UX can make completing tasks successfully much easier for employees, in addition to providing them with a great experience.
Enhancing UI and UX
The goal of all applications is simplicity, ease of use and availability at all times. By providing these goals through effective UI and UX designs, efficiency can be instantly optimized. In order to create a good UI and UX, it is necessary to understand just what it is your employees need in order to perform their tasks well. For instance, the use of your current timesheets may be costing your employees time simply because of their design. Having identified the problem and gathered the necessary data, it should be possible to optimize the UI design and to enhance the UX.
Business applications such as timesheets can hold many discrepancies that mean more time is spent filling the sheets in than is necessary. This can lead to frustration within the workplace, and may, in some instances, mean employees do their best to avoid using such applications. All it takes is to enhance the interface being used. Small changes such as rearranging the format, moving components, such as drop down menus, columns and so on, will help address various issues like column repetition. By simply making your applications more usable through UI adjustments and improved UX design, software will be more appealing, easy to use and less problematic.
Developmental Strategies for UI and UX
Sometimes, it is easier to start from scratch and build a new interface rather than tweak a preexisting program. This is particularly true if the current software cannot easily adhere to the newly required demands, or there are severe limitations to enhancement possibilities due to compatibility issues with newer programs or with hardware. It is best to start with a clean slate and create a fully functioning easy to use application. Furthermore, growth, mergers, or any other factor that results in a large organization will benefit from a unified UX and UI. Employees do not want different systems in different departments, as this is unnecessarily complicated and mistakes are prone to occur more frequently. A well-designed UX with an easy-to-use UI implies seamless transition of information across departments and through software applications without any hiccups.
In UX and UI, aiming for simplistic designs plays a key role through intuitive visuals, rather than impressive aesthetics or complicated designs. No matter how good an application looks, if it is not easy to use, timesaving or easily available when needed, employees will try to avoid it or they might become stuck in their work. While visual designs can be appealing, the focus should remain on functionality, so that employees are satisfied when using the application. Effective UI and UX usually increase a user’s demand to work with the software. Consider Apple, for example, which led the standard for alternative computer designs back in 1998 with the iMac G3. Trading in the drab gray, sharp-edged corners with colorful, round-edged corners, and easy-to-use software with stable, virus-free operating system.
Thus, when the UI and UX in your organization’s software is stable, intuitive, unified and problem-free, employees will be encouraged to work with it, there will be less margin for errors, there will be increased efficiency and increased productivity.
Budgeting for Improvement
UI and UX design can be difficult to budget for. It all depends on whether the work will be carried out internally or externally. The consensus is to only budget what your business can afford. Should you have an employee that possesses this skill within your organization, then budgeting will be much easier. Whereas hiring an external designer would result in greater expenses that would require a larger budget. The likely scenario is that the improvements will be carried out internally.
Most organizations that build their own UI and UX improvements use the leading standard HTML5 or existing technologies: including Brazos UI for IBM, Motion UI or SAP Fiori. Though for HR applications, a homegrown HTML5-based technology offers the opportunity to put employee processes, forms or requests into an intuitive UI to help concentrate on process activities and self services. In doing so, costs can be reduced and the budget can be kept manageable.
Great UX designs do not just simplify your employees experience with software, but also that of the HR department, making it easier for HR to approach all tasks with the same clarity and ease as the rest of the organization. Employees do not simply want to look at a screen with great aesthetics; they have functional requirements like improved productivity, speed, clarity and so on. Thus improving UI and UX will help all involved in the organization and it will strengthen your business.
Written by Lucine Bassa for Together Abroad