Cisco’s new CTO comments on the importance of user interface design
Good user interface design has traditionally been a low priority in the world of network management applications (except for a few companies like my own that seem to get it). But a recent interview with Cisco’s new CTO, Padmasree Warrior, may be a bellwether of changing priorities:
What’s Cisco’s most immediate technology need?
I don’t think it’s a Cisco need as much as an industry need. If you think about what’s happening with the industry, you can think of it as either a convergence or a collision. Convergence because we are truly merging content, communications, computing and commerce. It’s a collision because different industries come at it form different angles. Google and Amazon come form the application down into the infrastructure; infrastructure companies are going up. Wireless and wireline are converging as well. So it changes the landscape of who competes with whom in the future and who becomes your friend.
So what I think what Cisco needs more of in terms of technology and talent is moving from infrastructure to more providing the applications associated with the infrastructure. You have to think about how users interface with the technology. So user interface becomes a very important aspect that we have to think about. As the enterprise gets more consumerized, it has to be very simple, it has to be one click. It’s user interface, usability – how simple is it to set up. It’s that kind of focus that we need more of.
Original article: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/062508-cisco-cto-warrior.html?page=1
Padmasree, you give me hope!
[...] Cisco’s new CTO comments on the importance of user interface designMore and more companies (including Cisco) are becoming aware of the important of good user interface design. Cisco’s new CTO, Padmasree Warrior, tells why. [...]
It is indeed very pleasant to read the remarks of P. Warrior about the intentions to try to make converge technologies and end-users expectations.
The simplicity of a product is certainly very important in term of satisfaction, nevertheless it has to come from a real adaptation to the needs of end-users. It is the most important requirement for making usability becoming a true added-value for the product and business challenges.