User experience, which in software speak is often referred to as UX, is a key part of technology design. Unlike more purely technical aspects of product design, like data management algorithms or interface layouts, UX focuses much of its energy on the customer’s emotional interaction with the product.
For businesses trying to sell their wares, good UX design has become a crucial strategy for building consumer loyalty. The reasoning is simple: If a product is pleasurable to use, the customer will like it more and want to buy more of the same.
Yardi’s UX reflects a choice
As a software developer, Yardi is keenly aware of how important the UX elements of its platform are to its customers. In the highly competitive world of asset management platforms, Yardi has incorporated user experience into its designs for many years.
But there are two unavoidable problems:
- One size fits most. When Yardi designs UX into its solutions, it does so for a big audience. Designing UX for a wide audience typically means making choices based on a set of assumptions that likely will leave some users out of the equation. One user’s pleasure might be another user’s pain.
- It’s still a database of databases. Yardi is still a data management tool. If working with it felt like a beach vacation, chances are it would not deliver the performance businesses need. To its credit, over the decades Yardi has stuck with what it does best: making great data management and analytics systems with robust back-end architectures. They have made great strides in UX design, but they aren’t going to sacrifice utility for “pleasure.”
User experience is employee experience
For businesses that are adopting Yardi for the first time or upgrading to a new version, UX is probably not on the list of top priorities. But should it be?
The main driver of purchasing decisions around Yardi tends to be the nuts and bolts (or dollars and cents) of the business. Senior managers and their bosses want a great tool for keeping all the data their company generates organized and useful. Some parts of this audience may never work directly with Yardi, and others may only use certain features while leaving the day-to-day administration to their staff.
For someone who does not make intense use of Yardi every day, UX may not matter. But for the staffers who are in the system all day, UX can be the difference between a job they love and a job they hate.
Remember what we said about Yardi’s efforts on the UX design front: for many end-users, the base design of the system works well. But it’s not true across the board. That’s where 33Floors can help, by providing customized interactive elements within the client’s platform, as well as tailored tools for getting more from the system more easily.
Tailoring Yardi’s UX with straightforward solutions
Under the hood, much about Yardi is modular in design. The experienced software engineers at 33Floors can make changes at various levels of the system to customize user experience across the enterprise. Here are some examples:
- Organize information to be more useful and accessible. Yardi’s databases are configured in a certain way by default, but they do not need to stay in that configuration. Many of our clients appreciate having the platform’s underlying data architecture modified to enhance the accessibility of the data they care about most. The result is happier employees and executives, because the system works more efficiently and transparently.
- Tweaking the user interface. User interface decisions can have a significant impact on UX. Something as simple as a reorganized menu structure can solve an end user’s biggest hurdle to embracing the platform.
- Custom training materials. The UX problem may not lie with the platform itself, but rather specific gaps in the knowledge of a company’s team. Yardi provides good documentation for its products, but in many cases, something more specific is required. As part of our implementation process, 33Floors routinely creates tailored reference materials, branded to the client, so users feel at home and supported as they master new skills.
What has your UX experience with Yardi been? We’d like to hear from you and to help your business enhance its use of Yardi. Our team is available throughout the world. Contact us today to learn more.
