Last updated at Tue, 25 Apr 2023 20:30:37 GMT
"Enterprise products have always worked this way. Our users are familiar with it." -- I am drawing from memory, so I would not dare say that is an exact quote, but I have had various software professionals say it to me as recently as a year ago. It really bothered me to hear someone so comfortable with the status quo when there was absolutely no reason for it.
While I understand that their requirements, like user management and administrator roles, will live on and with good reason. Still, building a product the way, "enterprise products," always have been built is a cop out. Given the amount of software the average person interacts with on a daily basis outside the office, we should not force them to spend hours at work learning how to use software. If I install an app on my phone and it takes me more than 10 minutes to figure it out, I uninstall it.
A major reason that I joined Rapid7 last year was because everyone who interviewed me talked about the user experience. I do not know other B2B product companies that care so much about making products that are easy to understand and use.
While we are gradually improving the user experience for Nexpose and Metasploit over time as new features are added or existing functionality is overhauled, ControlsInsight was built with simplicity as one of its core goals requirements. We took small lessons from some of our favorite consumer websites around speaking in plain English and not overwhelming users with information, and then we put the product in customer hands at various stages of development to confirm that it was easy to use and easy to understand.
Please note: I am not declaring victory here, since we are already making usability improvements for upcoming releases, but I am really proud to say that our customers can get results in a few minutes and have told us that they understand those results immediately.
We'd love to hear more feedback from you - and also please let us know any questions you have about ControlsInsight.