The visual display of transactions and information has always been a major issue for users of enterprise software. For too long, user interfaces to MRP, ERP and other enterprise software have been as much a barrier as an asset. Just as it's obvious that the people who put up the directional signage on highways never actually have to go anywhere, so it has been that most user interfaces were historically designed by people who didn't actually have to use them.
This adversarial relationship has been changing for a while, pretty much since client/server computing put the squeeze on user-hostile green-screen interfaces and their ilk. And while there's no doubt that portals and Web browsers have significantly changed human/machine interfaces, what's coming down the pike may prove to be a whole lot better, if not just a little retrograde.
One of the most important changes in user interfaces is coming from Microsoft's Office product suite. While many of us don't see Office as the be-all and end-all of user interfaces, particularly with respect to manufacturing, it actually makes sense for the simple fact that just about anyone who uses a computer knows how to use Outlook, Word and Excel, among others.
Also, the Office interface becomes a great way for vendors to extend their user bases: imagine if all the hundreds of million of Office users were also users of SAP R/3 or Microsoft Axapta or any other piece of enterprise software. You can almost hear the ka-ching of new sales lighting up the industry.
How this impacts users, particularly in manufacturing, is a little more subtle. Clearly, heads-down manufacturing and supply chain functionality aren't going to be run from Outlook. So the basics of getting the manufacturing job done will be left to the interfaces that we now have. But as manufacturing and supply chain management become more of a collaborative effort, linking workers, workflows and processes across time and space, commonly used productivity tools such as Outlook and the Office suite start making a lot of sense. Cutting down on training and rekeying costs while using the software with which most people are familiar is the best retrograde revolution to hit the UI space in a while.
Meanwhile, out there in left field is a little company that may have created the most significant revolution in user interfaces in a long time. If only enough people would take a look.
Mindjet's MindManager is basically a visual tool for developing and managing the relationships between ideas, objects or people. It's incredibly powerful and, most importantly, it's something new in the interface world that might actually help define the future of how we use software.
Right now MindManager is used mostly by sales people, consultants and the odd executive who sees the value of looking at things in a vastly different way. But if Mindjet has its way, MindManager is an interface coming to your desktop sometime soon.
The upshot of Microsoft's retro efforts and Mindjet's future-is-here efforts is that the ways in which you use enterprise software are still a-changin'. Portals shook a lot of us out of our client/server complacency and revealed the possibility of a more valuable user experience. Office and MindManager represent two more ways to get more bang for your enterprise software buck. It may never be really fun to sit down and get to work, but it's guaranteed to become a whole lot easier.