I'm a seasoned front-end engineer (20+ years of experience, working closely with UI and UX designers, worked for the big names, etc.) and I recently had to enter an invoice into a system and I couldn't figure out how it worked. The "SAVE" button was greyed out, and it didn't have a visible :hover state, and the text was light grey on a slightly-darker grey background. The mouse cursor was the normal pointer, not even a hand. So I never assumed it was a button I could actually press.
Imagine if someone like me gets confused by stuff like that. Less-seasoned people wouldn't even manage to understand a UI like that at all.
Worst finding I noticed was that because the UI looked so amateurish and outdated, I also didn't dare to click on things out of fear of breaking the system, which would cost or delay me a month of freelance payment if I messed things up.
Bad UX and bad UI are absolutely killing. And unfortunately, many of these companies (the one in my example included) don't give a damn. This company pretty much has a local monopoly on this kind of software. Their backend integrates with numerous (outdated) payment systems and nobody else does it like that. They can get away with it because people don't have alternative options; so why would they even consider spending tens of thousands on improving the UX and UI?
I'm seriously considering setting up my own product to replace theirs. The frontend looks simple enough. It's just the backend that worries me.
Imagine if someone like me gets confused by stuff like that. Less-seasoned people wouldn't even manage to understand a UI like that at all.
Worst finding I noticed was that because the UI looked so amateurish and outdated, I also didn't dare to click on things out of fear of breaking the system, which would cost or delay me a month of freelance payment if I messed things up.
Bad UX and bad UI are absolutely killing. And unfortunately, many of these companies (the one in my example included) don't give a damn. This company pretty much has a local monopoly on this kind of software. Their backend integrates with numerous (outdated) payment systems and nobody else does it like that. They can get away with it because people don't have alternative options; so why would they even consider spending tens of thousands on improving the UX and UI?
I'm seriously considering setting up my own product to replace theirs. The frontend looks simple enough. It's just the backend that worries me.