Designing and developing internal tools might sound like the kind of work featured on Dirty Jobs, but given the right team, business, and ambition, these can be among the most rewarding types of projects.
The work is often remarkably complex, requiring a thorough analysis of business problems, information structures, and user needs. It's also highly satisfying, bringing commercial-grade design and development to tools that usually start out as spreadsheets and documents cobbled together. Whether you're making dashboards, inventory systems, or collaboration solutions, these kind of internal tools are the engines that make businesses run.
If you enjoy working behind the scenes, keep an eye out for projects like these.
1. UX for the Enterprise by Jordan Koschei via A List Apart Enterprise UX is often about solving ancillary problems by creating tools that facilitate an organization's primary goals. These problems are rarely as compelling or visible as the goals they support, but they're just as necessary to solve.
2. The Future of Enterprise Design Is Consumer-Grade UX by Amanda Linden via UX Magazine The beauty of designing for enterprise and other paid applications is that the end-user's goals and your business' goals are aligned.
4. The Best Enterprise UX Is the One You Never See by Sean B. Walter via UX Magazine The more appealing, familiar and easy to use your product, the more it will benefit your bottom line.