we need to design applications better. a lot of the custom-coded systems that i have seen my clients use have a major flaw to them: one-way thinking

these applications and systems were designed to help users do something, but how users interface with that application was designed in a one-way world. how does the system gather information? someone has to type an ID and one or more number values and press enter.

next record.

but what happens when there are thousands of records to input? some sorry chap has to sit and manually enter data for 8 hours a day. and how do you get data out of the system? you run some kind of terrible report with weird formatting that some sorry chap has to sit and manually enter into another application.

integrating tools and systems and data is important for fidelity purposes—the more times you manually edit data the higher probability of errors—but it’s also important from a time perspective. why waste your people’s time punching numbers? make the tools easy and flexible. don’t just design for a one-way kind of world. let users have their cake and eat it too.

give them back hours of their time so they can go do something that matters.