Michael Lehman and I interviewed David Shadle, Microsoft User Experience Evangelist for this week’s The MicroISV Show. David’s job is to get more ISV’s (including micro-ISVs) to think about building apps users actually enjoy using.

This is not some feel nice bell and whistle - especially for micro-ISVs. User experience is not just an attractive, shiny interface (although that doesn’t hurt) - it’s how hard or easy it it for people to get what they want done with your app. It’s the design and structure of the app. And with the advent of the .NET 3 framework, developers now have some very powerful tools they lacked before for building great user experiences.

An app that’s convoluted, offering too many meaningless options or does things in a way the developer thought was cool and everyone else is baffled by delivers a bad user experience, resentful and sullen users, decreased sales and an unloyal following.

An app that makes it clear how to perform the most important functions the user will have, easily and smoothly, with a structure that makes sense to the people using the app with an interface that attractive and easy to work with delivers a good user experience, enthusiastic users, increased sales and a loyal following.

Which do you want?

Not convinced? Listen to David’s podcast.

[tags]The MicroISV Show, User Experience[/tags]

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