Enterprise UX Design

Did I get your attention? Today in our BA/UX meeting our new, very consumer-oriented UX person asked why he is sent to our business representatives to get answers instead of having access to users. It made me realize how different our process in creating enterprise applications is from the process recommended in UX consumer-driven design Don't get me wrong. Our employees do the work and the applications need to be designed to support them. But the process to complete the work takes center stage. In the enterprise you don't get to allow employees to define the process they would prefer to follow or even maybe currently follow to design a new application or update an old one. There are far more important things that matter to business such as adhering to government compliance and regulations and performing tasks expediently in a predetermined order or process. Many large and international companies have a group that determines the processes that must be followed by employees ...

We've had an on-going discussion at my company about where to place main functional buttons. At one point we were following an application paradigm where all main functional buttons were placed in a menu bar at the top of the page. Prior to that and now we follow a web paradigm where all the buttons are placed at the bottom. We always placed them to the right until one designer started refusing to do this especially with search forms. His reasoning, and rightly so, was that the button was being placed too far to the right and away from the form so that the user was being forced to search for the Search button. When I finally understood my job as an enterprise UX designer, two things changed how I lay buttons out on the page. First, red routes. What is the single main task the user will do on the page? What does that part of their process look? What is the main data and/or inputs they need to do the task? When do they have the data to enter or review so that I arrange that inform...