At Paradise Partners, Inc., we’ve been developing software for a combined 60 years.
Over the years we’ve learned a thing or two about what works. And what really, really doesn’t! We’ve picked out our top 5 design considerations that can make or break your custom app:
Clean design makes a difference
This may seem superfluous, and you might be surprised it made the first item on our list, but when your software looks like it was built last century and appears disorganized or with little or no thought to design, people lose confidence in your software. If they don’t have confidence in your software, they will avoid using it and find other tools that seem more maintained. This leads to a fractured workflow and a fractured team.
The right tool is one gets people what they need, where they need it
Imagine this: you’re at a client’s office and they want to know how well their job is performing for them. You have this information, but you have to call back to your office, or you have to launch your custom app on your computer, which means connecting to your client’s network. They’ve now lost interest. A custom desktop app may be perfect when you’re delving into details back at the office, but in many cases, something different may serve you better – a web portal that gives you quick access to specific job functions, a custom mobile app that you can keep open on your phone, or maybe a completely web-based interface may be called for.
Give them everything they need… but not more.
We’ve seen far too many apps that try to give everybody all the information about everything all at once: a project, a company, a task…. These means that each person needs to scan through information looking for what’s important to them. A well-thought-out design can be specialized for each person’s role on a team, highlighting critical information at just the right moment, and pointing them to the information that matters just to them. Even better, give them the information just when they need it – they may not need to know the DPI of a printout in the description of the job, for example – that may just be useful when they need to print it out. Providing just the right information speeds up performance and makes your staff happy.
Be consistent, consistently
“I know it was here yesterday.”, “I’m not sure how you get to that screen – try clicking that, then that, then that….” Seriously, stop wasting your team’s time trying to figure out HOW to use your software. Be consistent in how you to similar things. Nobody should have to keep re-learning the same thing over & over again.
People don’t do “data collection”
This is a big one, even though it’s the bottom of the top 5. Nobody likes to enter data. Especially if it’s an afterthought. If you’re counting on that information to run your business, you’ll end up with huge gaps and inconsistent data points. What’s the solution? Build any important “data collection” into your workflow. Huh? It’s takes a little forethought to set this up right, but make sure that anytime you ask people to put information into your app, they get something out of it – they get to move on the next step in the job, they get to tick off their daily schedule, and so on. Building into their workflow means that they’re not thinking about “entering data.” They’re just thinking about finishing up what they need to do anyway. And you get the information you need to run your business.