Avoiding v1 letdown

In software consulting we make a lot of GUIs. Custom software abounds with them and everything needs to be a little different in order to solve specific problems. But here’s the thing, when we make a new app that does similar thing to existing apps out there, the first version is guaranteed to just anger people.

“How hard would it be to have the files converted to pdf on upload?”

“Couldn’t the list of options for this field be autocompleted with helfup hints?”

“Can’t the files continue uploading in the background and I’ll get a notification when they complete?”

“I expected when I set those permissions for Stacy that it would also give access to Steve!”

All of those expectations are based on experience users have with other apps, and each one of them from a software maker’s perspective is a feature that takes time and needs to bubble to the top of the backlog to get implemented. The reason all the expectations aren’t met is that we’ve only been working on this new software for a few months and the applications we’re getting compared to have had teams of people working on them for years! Give us a break!

Just recently, though, we’ve realized there might be another solution. A way out of this conundrum that allows for use-case specific business rules but tried and true, robust user experiences from day 1. The answer? Make the software system an orchestration manager of some existing front end tool. Maybe it’s a chatbot or an app for Messages or Messenger. If what users are doing is filling out forms this is a great way to do it. Another hugely popular avenue is a Slack app — Slack apps have the advantage of built-in enterprise friendly rules around ACLs.

All of these solutions can have places where the tool gives way to a regular old web app or html page. Need to show a graph or visualization? Have the chatbot drop the URL into the chat stream and a nice preview of it can show up that the user can tap on to dive deeper into the information in a web browser. Have a video or pdf? Same thing applies.

Sure there are lots of things that you can’t do with this approach, for example, you’re not going to make a spreadsheet in Slack (watch someone is going to prove me wrong before the end of the week), but for all the things you can do that involve moving files around, and putting data into databases and retrieving data out of databases, skipping the crappy v1 web UIseems to be a great new option.