Business Software Faces Pressure to Update Its User Experience
March 17 2021 - 7:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Ann-Marie Alcántara
When Citigroup Inc. last year sent almost $900 million to
lenders in error, it not only set off a legal fight over the money
but unwittingly highlighted a separate issue in the back office:
the frequently clunky experience of using business software.
The mistaken payment at Citi occurred as workers tried to send a
nearly $8 million interest payment using a financial software
product called Flexcube, which is offered by a subsidiary of Oracle
Corp. Citi has blamed the mistake on human error. An Oracle
spokeswoman said financial institutions use Flexcube to safely make
trillions of dollars in transactions every day.
In the ensuing litigation as Citi tried to recoup the money, the
bank shared images from its software. The screenshots showed a user
interface with dense type, low contrast and small buttons and
boxes.
It is the kind of design that would make executives at
consumer-facing companies cringe, including banks offering brightly
lit and easy-to-use apps to their checking, savings and credit-card
customers, designers and analysts said. But it hardly stands out in
a business environment, they said. While people look for
best-in-class user experiences as consumers, they are often forced
to check those kinds of expectations at the office door.
That is partly because the people who choose business software
for their companies rarely consider user experience, said Sam
Horodezky, founder of Strathearn Design, a user-experience
consulting firm. "They will frequently pick the product with the
most features or the lowest cost, without factoring in the end user
at all," he said.
It can also be costly to change or update business software, and
might require retraining employees, Mr. Horodezky added.
The Flexcube screenshot reflects an older, customized version of
its business software, the Oracle spokeswoman said. "The
screenshots shown in court do not reflect the current user
interface of Oracle's corporate-lending systems," she said.
There are also key differences between personal payments and
corporate lending, the Oracle spokeswoman said.
"These lending systems are built for trained users who have to
consider multiple complex scenarios and fields, and is not just a
money transfer from one person to another," she said.
No two commercial loans are structured the same way, as they
might be in consumer lending, said Paul Spiteri, chief executive of
the Lending Practice, a commercial lending consulting firm. "It is
hard to encapsulate technology and processes around something that
doesn't look the same twice," he said.
The good news for workers squinting at dimly lit designs is that
the consumer sector is putting pressure on businesses to provide
better digital experiences for both clients and employees,
according to software executives.
"They're having an influx of users who are demanding easier,
simpler, more modern experiences," said Todd Olson, chief executive
of Pendo.io Inc., a product-engagement software company that offers
services such as user onboarding and training.
However, while changing relatively obvious elements in the user
interface can help, that doesn't always address deeper problems, he
said. Companies might need to analyze how long users are spending
on certain forms or where they pause, for example, to understand
which changes to make.
Companies are beginning to invest in making products easier to
use, but their efforts are still relatively nascent, said Andrew
Hogan, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., a research
firm.
"They're paying interest on the design debt," Mr. Hogan said of
companies that don't make ease of use a priority. "This is an area
that's going to see huge investment over the next few years."
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital
practices in business software, said Lidiane Jones, executive vice
president and general manager of Salesforce Commerce Cloud, part of
business software provider Salesforce.com Inc. Technologies such as
personalization and artificial intelligence, commonly used in
consumer products, are starting to become capabilities that
business-software users want, she said.
After the overpayment snafu last August, Citi said it is in the
process of upgrading its loan-operations platform. "We have put
significant, additional controls in place until the new system is
operational," it said then.
Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at ann-marie.alcantara@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 17, 2021 07:14 ET (11:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024