Skip to main content

Things end users care about but programmers don't

(And we agree with them, but our tools make it really hard to provide)

Colors

  • Change color of things

  • Nice default color palette

  • Use my preferred color palette

  • Use this color from here

  • Import/export color themes

  • Some words or identifiers should always have a specific color

  • The same thing should have the same color everywhere

  • Good contrast

  • Automatic contrast of text if I pick a dark/light background

  • Automatically generate color for large number of items

    • All the colors should belong to the same palette

    • Don't generate colors that are hard to tell apart

    • Don't place similar colors close to each other

    • Don't use the background color on things

Formatting

  • Apply basic formatting to text

  • Align text

  • Use the fonts I use in Office

  • WYSIWYG editor that behaves like Word

  • Number alignment

  • Number/date formatting to the right locale

  • Decimal formatting to the right/fixed number of decimal places

  • No weird .0000004 formatting anywhere

  • No .00 for integers

  • Emoji support

Themes

  • Dark theme

  • My Theme

  • Company Branding

  • Put the logo in places

  • My logo on the Login Page

Integrations

  • Integrate with system accounts

  • Use accounts/permissions from Active Directory

  • Import from Excel/CSV

  • Import from email/email attachment

  • Export to Excel

  • Export to PDF/Image

  • Record a short video

    • As a GIF

  • Send as email

    • Send as email periodically

    • Send as PDF attachment on an email

  • Import/attach images

    • Crop before upload

    • Compress

    • Change Format

  • Use image as background but stretch the right way

  • Notifications on the app

    • On apps on my phone

    • By SMS

    • On our systems

    • On my mail

UX

  • Good error handling

  • Good error descriptions

    • Translated error messages

  • Tell me what to do to solve an error

  • Tell me what this does before I click on it

  • Support touch gestures and mouse

  • Keyboard shortcuts

    • Customizable

  • Undo everywhere

  • Multiple undo

  • Recover deleted things

  • Ask before deleting

  • Copy and paste

  • Templates

  • Detailed and up to date guides in text with screenshots at each step and highlights

    • And in Video

    • Screenshots that stay up to date as the product evolves

    • That are in sync with the version I'm using

    • That adapt to my custom setup

  • Up to date and detailed documentation

  • Translated to my language

  • Sorting everywhere

    • Natural sort

    • Sort by multiple criteria

  • Filter everywhere

    • Fuzzy filtering

    • Case sensitive/insensitive filtering

    • Filter by multiple/complex criteria

  • Track what is used where and warn me when deleting

  • Optional cascade deletion

  • Native and simple date picker on every platform

  • Sorted lists/selects (by the label!)

    • Natural Sorting

  • Dropdowns with filtering but that behave like the native controls

  • Preview things

  • Consistent button ordering/labels

  • Consistent capitalization

  • Progress bars for slow/async operations

  • Responsive UI during slow operations

  • Disabling buttons during slow operations

  • Handling double clicks on things that should be clicked once

  • Clear indication of what can be clicked

Compatibility

  • Deploy on exotic configurations/platforms

  • Deploy on old/unsupported versions

  • Deploy on what we have

  • Deploy/Run without internet connection

  • Handle Excel, CSV, JSON, XML

    • Handle malformed versions of all of the above

  • Handle (guess) dates with no timezone

  • Handle ambiguous/changing date formats

  • Integrate with obscure/outdated software/format

  • It should work on my old android phone browser/IE 11

  • Unicode

    • Handle inputs with unknown and variable encodings

Operations

  • Easy to install

  • Easy to update

  • Easy to backup

  • Easy to recover

  • Works with the database and version we use

  • Can be mounted on a path that is not the root of the domain

Found it interesting?

Subscribe to instadeq's monthly newsletter to stay updated