Put yourself in the role of a user of your process driven Appian application. By process driven, I mean the application conducts the process and assigns a task to you because your specific human capabilities are required.
There is a ist of tasks … click … understand task user interface … think … think … enter … complete task. And now? What is this doing with my valuable input?
As a human being, I need to understand what is going on. Especially in cases where this process needs another interaction with me in a later step. If this is just a black box for me, I probably stop caring about it. I am sure you know this feeling of powerlessness and helplessness.
Feeling the Process
Assigning a task to a person is something special. Keep in mind that the business process in that Appian application was modelled based on the specifications of the functional managers, but is ultimately operated on behalf of the COO. So, each task is assigned in the name of the COO including due dates, escalations and expected quality of the outcome.
Now, we as Appian designers need to empower the person working on that task. We need to understand the purpose, develop a user interaction that creates the expected outcome in the most efficient way. And we want this person to feel the value they add to this process.
Making a process transparent to the user
On a high level, this is pretty simple. As a person working on a task, I need five things:
- Orientation: What is this process about and what is going on.
- Explanation: What am I supposed to do.
- Data: Exactly the amount of data and details I need to be able to carry out this activity.
- Input: Some way to record the results of my work.
- Outlook: I want to understand what the next steps are and how I am involved.
When designing a task user interface, we typically focus most on input, then on data and explanation. And we tend to ignore orientation and outlook.
Let’s do better! In Appian, forms have a label and an instructions text. Use the label for a clear description of the task, and instructions to provide orientation.
Data and input becomes the body of the user interface.
For outlook, add a separate footer explaining the next steps and how the process provides feedback.
And before I forget it, “Submit” is not a good name for a button!
Summary
That’s all it takes to make your users feel included and valued! And I’m not just saying that! My clients recognize this level of attention and tell me that it surprised them and how much they appreciate it.
Rock that user experience!