UI Basics: Strategies for an Expansion Stage Company

User interface or UI is a critical component of the product management process. An optimal UI can best be thought of as one that allows the user to achieve the desired output with minimal input. UI revolves around usability, consistency, and intuitive functionality. 

For expansion stage software companies, a thoughtful and illuminating UI can make all the difference. Consumer-focused companies are often thought to champion the UI cause with the 800-pound gorilla being Apple. From the iPhone to the iPad, the consumer is driven and drawn in by the company’s laser-like focus on understanding the user. Several other B2C companies, including Gowalla, Pandora and Google, have clearly made UI a focus within their respective product management lifecycles.

UI is just as important for B2B software companies. Often thought of in terms of functional capabilities, B2B companies can benefit from creating an engaging UI that allows the user to navigate an application or product with relative ease.

Jakob Nielsen, dubbed the “king of usability” by Internet Magazine, has worked with large technology companies like Sun Microsystems and IBM to make their large-scale enterprise products more user friendly. He has created a list of ten principles for user interface design that highlight where a company should be focusing its product design and development efforts. 

These include:

– User control and freedom

– Flexibility and efficiency of use, and

– Aesthetic and minimalist design
This focus on the user begins with a navigable and interactive webpage and culminates in the sale of an intuitive and easy-to-use product offering. 

A useful exercise that will allow expansion stage companies to understand how they are doing on the UI front, is to take Nielsen’s list of principles and examine how the company is currently addressing each of them. Areas that are lacking can then be integrated into the product management process and will allow the company to round out its UI efforts.