{"id":869,"date":"2016-06-04T20:42:34","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T20:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/?p=869"},"modified":"2016-06-04T21:23:20","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T21:23:20","slug":"user-experience-in-a-back-office-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/2016\/06\/04\/user-experience-in-a-back-office-application\/","title":{"rendered":"User experience in a back-office application"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t ever seem to explain what ‘user experience<\/em><\/a>‘ is, leave alone make the case that it is important. \u00a0I say ‘user experience<\/em>‘ and people hear ‘user interface<\/em>‘.<\/p>\n

User experience in an in-house, back-office application<\/h4>\n

Let’s try this.<\/p>\n

Imagine I am speaking to a bean counter type middle manager in some sclerotic insurance company. I say this to him.<\/p>\n

You make sure that the user knows the business<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I will build a system<\/strong> that a user can run the business<\/strong> with.<\/p>\n

The user will not require training<\/strong> to use the system<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The system<\/strong> is not the business<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The system<\/strong> is a transparent<\/strong> tool<\/strong> that anyone with business<\/strong> knowledge will simply ‘get’.<\/p>\n

The system<\/strong> will ensure that the user executes the\u00a0business<\/strong> correctly, and efficiently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New Enrollment into a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan<\/h4>\n

Consider new enrollment into a Medicare Part D plan (Prescription Drug Plan). \u00a0The insurance processor must know the business, described below.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • A person comes to us, asking\u00a0to enroll in a prescription drug plan.<\/li>\n
  • In response we send a query to CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) to confirm that the applicant is eligible for the benefits she is asking for. \u00a0In industry jargon, this is the BEQ (Batch Eligibility Query).<\/li>\n
  • If CMS finds that the applicant is eligible, we complete the application, and formally notify CMS that the person has enrolled into a\u00a0Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. \u00a0 This happens through the MARx Batch Input Transaction File, which we send to CMS every day.<\/li>\n
  • Then we wait for CMS to tell us that it has accepted this person’s enrollment. \u00a0This is through the Transaction Reply Report (aka TRR), which CMS sends us daily.<\/li>\n
  • Now, the member is completely enrolled.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Say we build a software system that allows the processor to execute the above workflow. \u00a0 In addition, say we promise that the processor can simply be put in front of the system, and she will be able figure out how to perform the business without any further training from us.<\/p>\n

    More than ‘user interface’<\/h4>\n

    If we can build such a system, we will have mastered user experience.<\/p>\n

    Think about what it takes to accomplish that.<\/p>\n

    Clearly we are talking about more than proficiency in HTML and Javascript. \u00a0At the very least, we the engineers, have to know the business, and we have to know the business users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I can’t ever seem to explain what ‘user experience‘ is, leave alone make the case that it is important. \u00a0I say ‘user experience‘ and people hear ‘user interface‘. User experience in an in-house, back-office application Let’s try this. Imagine I am speaking to a bean counter type middle manager in some sclerotic insurance company. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,4],"tags":[18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seonthemon.com\/wp351\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}