Moving from Enterprise to the World Wide Web
I'm going to change my work space from Enterprise Web Applications written for a specific business process to public websites that will be accessible to all users.
What is the difference between these two realms at the topmost level? What specific symbols do I need to know about modern website design?
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I suspect one could write books about it.
I guess the first difference is the user base. With an enterprise, you can at least partially ensure that users do what they were supposed to do, and if you didn't know who they are and where they live. In addition, they can be fired for abuse. On a public website, you almost have to assume that some of your user base is missing for some reason. So paranoid - if they haven't attacked you yet, just wait.
The second related point is that users will find ways to use (abuse?) Their site that you never thought of. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Third, language, culture and usage vary throughout the world. A form, for example, with a "postcode" that only accepts 5 digits, may make sense in the US, but is not useful in the UK. And to ask the state and limit it to two characters also makes no sense to speak in Italy, where Italy is a "state". This also applies to the actual content - this joke that you find so funny may be offensive in other countries. And the ability of some people not to be offended by anything is never evaluated.
Fourth, get a good group of beta testers and test your site and update it thoroughly and thoroughly.
Fith, you have a scalability plan - if you suddenly get "discovered", your site can take advantage of traffic.
These are at least 5 things.
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In enterprise applications, functionality and efficiency trump aesthetics every time. This is because you have a captive audience. Users who use your app are paid to use it.
However, by opening the app to the general public, aesthetics become more important. There are always alternatives, and the person in question will be more attracted to the app that looks better. Of course, functionality is still very important for repeat users, but you won't get people in the door if your application looks dilettante.
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Browser agnosticism. In enterprise applications, it used to be just to target the application to a specific browser, just for simplicity. In Internet applications, the developer must target the vast majority of browsers. While this has become easier in the past few years, it is still an issue that needs attention.
Scalability — Easier to scale an enterprise application, easier to predict growth in application usage, or simply designed for all users in an organization at once. This usually does not apply to internet sites. The day you get slashdotted or dugg is the day you know about it. It's best to design scalability from the start, rather than learn it at a time when your site starts to suffer.
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In addition to Zack's answers, I would argue that a website / app open to the public needs to evolve / update continuously to grow its user base and keep them. Whereas in a more closed system, consistency and reliability are key priorities.
Depending on the nature of the application, if it has a significant amount of content, internationalization and presentation of the content is extremely important.
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As Zach points out, public users have much less tolerance for bad interfaces than corporate clients. However, public users are more tolerant of incremental change; you can update the live site as you see fit (while it works, of course!), without having to go through endless feature prioritization committees and user training requirements.
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Public websites should be easy to use . While it is important that they look somewhat polished, never let the varnish get in the way of ease of use. For example, many designers like fixed width layouts because they are more predictable, many users love fluid width layout because they use space more efficiently. Party with your users.
Enterprise users may be forced to deal with unnecessarily complex systems (the Lord knows that I am more than I would like), the public cannot.
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