Re:Some Users Want Terrible User Interfaces
by ig1 on Thursday March 25, 2010 @04:35PM
(#1219422)
Definitely agree. A lot of people use their Bloomberg Terminals completely by keyboard, whenever they even so much as change the tab ordering of fields on a function people complain. A lot of people have the layouts/ordering memorized.
Think about how much people complain when Facebook change their UI. Now imagine that if when they changed their layout you weren't able to do your job because it took you twice as long to find some information or if you lost a lot of money because you missed a pricing alert. Users are opposed to change for many reasons other than complexity for complexities sake.
If your company is willing to shell out $2k/month to give you a Bloomberg you've got other stuff you can brag about far more than the fact you can use a complex piece of software.
But I imagine the real reason they haven't done anything is simply because it's not worth it. Investing a huge amount of money (we're talking in the high tens or low hundreds of millions here) to revamp your GUI without a clear return on investment would be idiotic. They have been tackling the low hanging fruits though (the new graphs, font, etc.).
Think about how much people complain when Facebook change their UI. Now imagine that if when they changed their layout you weren't able to do your job because it took you twice as long to find some information or if you lost a lot of money because you missed a pricing alert. Users are opposed to change for many reasons other than complexity for complexities sake.
If your company is willing to shell out $2k/month to give you a Bloomberg you've got other stuff you can brag about far more than the fact you can use a complex piece of software.
But I imagine the real reason they haven't done anything is simply because it's not worth it. Investing a huge amount of money (we're talking in the high tens or low hundreds of millions here) to revamp your GUI without a clear return on investment would be idiotic. They have been tackling the low hanging fruits though (the new graphs, font, etc.).