By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience
Cloud-delivered applications are one of those things you watch to see how the phenomenon is going to fully express itself. It’s one of those industry-wide happenings, perhaps even more compelling than tablet computers, that is making the world a better place for users.
Consumers have already seen the benefit of a cloud approach with tailored, consumer-driven experiences on sites like eBay.
Whether it’s using a desktop user interface (UI) with powerful features such as a merchant user interface for uploading 100 long and short descriptions and photos, or a simplified UI on a tabletfor browsing through items from the comfort of your couch, or monitoring an auction on your smart phone using a native application, these custom, tailored experiences are really enabled by cloud computing.
Think about that. These user interfaces are tailored for what you are doing, on specific devices, and considering specific contexts of use. Add to that a consumer-level design aesthetic, and industrial-grade security, and you have the makings of a pleasant little revolution for enterprise users.
Enterprise Apps in the Cloud Should Work the Way You Do
Marry ease-of-use, device-savvy design, custom-fit experiences, role-based access, international compliance, and security -- that’s a heady combination. It means that users can and should expect their cloud-delivered solutions to work the way they need.
Let me give you some examples. If I am a VP of sales, I am likely very mobile and use a simplified UI on a tablet quite a bit to browse and analyze my pipeline on the road. But if I need to sit down and crank out a deeper level of analysis for territory modeling, I am only going to do that from the comfort of a delightfully wide screen on a desktop UI. If I am dashing from a customer meeting to the airport, I want a quick user interface via a native application on my smartphone to capture only essential information.
If I am a general ledger clerk, I probably need access to a large-screen user interface. In fact, if you try to make me do my day-to-day work on a tablet, I would likely smack you with it. But I may be perfectly happy submitting my vacation schedule from a tablet-kiosk in the lunchroom.
It’s a pretty exciting time of change in enterprise software right now, and I am a big fan of these kinds of changes. It means that our end users will only benefit. Stay tuned to the Voice of User Experience (VoX) blog to hear more about some of the new stuff coming from Oracle.