Designing systems

15/10/2024
15/10/2024 Andreas

Designing systems

A hellscape or a great opportunity to make a difference?

Photo by iMattSmart on Unsplash

Systems tend to cause shivers for some designers and it’s easy to understand why. They are complex, may rely on ancient technology and can be challenging to work with, but that’s also where I think UX design needed the most!

Power users

Let’s first talk about users. System users are usually power users who have no other options for performing their daily tasks than relying to some certain internal tool,  and that’s why improving the usability of those not only eases the daily work but also boosts the business when an employee is able to perform faster. The system UI must cater to this heavy usage, and that’s why it may seem to be heavy use or difficult to digest. But this “heaviness” directly correlates to the complexity of the business process, if something can be done more efficiently and more simply – the UX can also be cleaner. However, “simple” is not always possible and in terms of user experience, cognitive burden might be heavy because the user must have wider array of controls at their disposal.

Casual users

With casual users, I refer to situations where you as a customer interact with the company. You might occasionally use a digital service to perform simple tasks. Such as :

  • Checking your bank account
  • Checking invoices in a self-service channel
  • Buying a product from an ecommerce site

These are all typically relatively simple tasks, as they should. And they are something, you as a user, happen to do once in a while when the need arises. You are not forced to use them on daily basis and for 7.5 hours straight. This is the biggest differentiation between power users and casual users in terms of digital services. This also impacts heavily the user interfaces, and can be easily observed how the UIs cater different needs.

Customer experience & employee experience

Sadly, I’ve noticed that employee experience doesn’t get nearly as much attention as customer experience in public speeches. It’s understandable, since the surface gets the most attention and is interacted by the largest volume of users. It’s the most open part to the public, and is certainly important. But I’d like to see more emphasis on acknowledging the employee experience as well, since in the end the employees often perform business critical tasks to keep the ship afloat and lights on. Systems definitely aren’t as sexy as some apps or other cool services, but they still have a crucial part in the infrastructure and they provide long-term value.

What makes a great system?

A great system is a pleasure to work with and allows users to focus on the meaningful parts of the work with less grinding & pointless clicking. They can significantly improve the employee experience when done right! As a product designer, designing systems can be challenging, but very rewarding and meaningful in terms of what value and benefit they bring.

Technology is the heart of a system. It’s what enables everything and plays a big part in setting the boundaries for design work. However technology itself isn’t the only answer, the end result must also be usable for the end users. Transformation projects are often driven by technology and it may steamroll over everything else. This approach has resemblance for piecing a puzzle together by only making the pieces physically fit together, but the end result doesn’t make any sense for the end user. However, some technologies may enable more than others. If a company has decided to rely on a vendor product, you as a designer face more probably challenges in improving the user experience. In the other hand, if your company has decided to build something from scratch, then it’s easier to implement the latest & greatest UX conventions to the UI. In this case you are also able to create tailor made solution to fit your business perfectly. Speaking from experience, the latter option is way better!

The greatest wins in terms of usability can be achieved by improving the processes, task management and by automation. If possible, sure a complete UI overhaul can also do wonders!

The system must first and foremost be able to provide the means for users to perform a task efficiently. This is why processes have a very important role in managing the workflow in a coherent way across the operational level. Having a clear process helps bring structure to everything and i think they also provide support for UX design. Having a well designed process can be also very beneficial in onboarding new employees and users for the new system.

As a product designer, I’ve also welcomed automation with open arms. Since not only does automation make my own life easier 😀 , but it also brings genuine usability improvements when we are able to rid a certain repetitive part of the workflow. In my experience, end users have also appreciated the automation since nobody really enjoys the duller parts of the workflow. Getting rid off those allows the users to focus on more pressing matters and they are also able to improve the overall quality of their work.

Task management obviously plays a big role in daily life of end users. Users usually need a way to keep track of their tasks, see the statuses of those tasks and being able to assign tasks to each other. More extensive task managements may include automated task assignment for users depending how much work load they have. Work queues are able to automatically organize tasks by priority and so much more. An extensive task management works as a nerve centre to guide the user to task A, B and C.

User experience design in this context serves the important role of tying everything together in a visual & interactive format. Previously I mentioned technology being the heart, design helps bring some soul into the game 😉 During development, the user interface designs serves as a great way of gathering early feedback from users. It has a very important part as a communicative tool within the team and when interacting with different stakeholders. It visualizes highly abstract concepts in a more easily digestible format 🙂

Why design them?

I encourage to design systems, since it’s an amazing opportunity to learn about how a business operates. You get to learn details in an atomic-level and learn to not take them as granted. Designing them allows you to solve real world problems and it’s also awesome to get to essentially shape how a business operates. Great impact can be achieved with system renewals / designs!