In recent years, the massive shift towards web apps and mobile apps have completely changed user expectations around how software should look and work.
When most folks are using the computer, they’re on the web (and increasingly not in a Windows app, except, of course, for the web browser that they’re using to access the web) and at these web sites:
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Google
Facebook
YouTube
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Yahoo
eBay
Amazon
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MSN
Pinterest
Hotmail
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Bing
Wikipedia
Twitter
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And, these same folks have a smartphone and are using these apps:
Users are expecting apps to be simpler, dynamic, “active” or “alive,” personalized, and responsive:
- “3 days ago”; relative date/time formatting
- Content first; labels and other items demoted
- Mixed Case vs. all UPPERCASE; natural and easier to read
- Hierarchy represented with whitespace and lines vs. rectangles within rectangles
- Minimal horizontal scrolling
- Modal; focus on one thing at a time
- Beautiful and actionable dashboards
- Progressive disclosure (show stuff as-needed)
What does this mean for the user experience design of your enterprise applications?