…But Complexity Can Be Good for Some Users

A few years back I did some work for an insurance company—I know, I get all the exciting projects, right? The software was a web-based UI that call center staff used to manage incoming customer inquiries. In this web application I was tasked with improving, a customer would call up to change their policy, or get a new one, cancel their cover, and so on, and the user would need to search, edit, save, or delete as necessary.

It had recently undergone a redesign and my job was to work with users to understand how successful the redesign had been and what features were succeeding and which weren’t. The new UI was clean, modern, airy—based on Material Design, with lots of negative space and big, clear typefaces.

It turned out that all the users hated the new system. The information density was too low. Instead of seeing all the customer information on one (or two) screens, tightly packed together, the user now had to navigate through multiple screens, scrolling view after view to see the details they needed. They even had to navigate back and forth between two views—waiting on the page load each time—to do basic things like checking a policy expiry date.

Nobody had asked users, “What is wrong with the current system?” Instead, they optimized the new design for user needs that didn’t exist (see #6, Test with Real Users).

Many skilled users who work in an enterprise environment rely on software to do lots of the same thing, repeatedly. Making enterprise software too simple—by trying to be more “consumer-looking”—just hides necessary functions away from the user and makes it frustrating and slow, increasing cognitive load.

For example, an aircraft cockpit is dense and complex—but it needs to be, because complexity is good for these users:

Figure 4.1: Look at all those controls. Image by Honglin Shaw on Unsplash

Similarly, professional audio tool Ableton Live has a dense, complex interface, but musicians spend all day, every day here and love the productivity it offers:

Figure 4.2: Ableton Live UI

Learning points

• Be wary of making complex products too “consumer-looking” and simple
• Don’t follow trends; focus on what your user needs
• Complexity doesn’t always mean a bad user experience