Part Two: The product · Everyday use
A company has things it wants every visitor to see. A person arrives wanting to carry on with their own work from where they left it.
A department head opens the personnel system to approve two leave requests before a meeting. The first screen shows a headcount chart, a staff turnover figure and a banner about a new survey feature. The requests are three clicks away, under Approvals.
That screen was not designed for her. In software sold to companies, the home dashboard exists because it looks good in a demo. The buyer sees charts and feels in control. In consumer products the first screen fills up another way: it is the one everybody sees, so every team wants a place on it. Either way the result is a little of everything, arranged by who argued hardest.
A person opening a product has one of a small number of purposes. Carry on with what they were doing. See what has changed since last time. Do the routine thing they always do. The first screen should serve those, in that order, and very little else.
A good code editor does this without being asked. It reopens the files you had open yesterday, with the cursor where you left it. Nothing asks whether you would like to continue.
In other work software the same idea is today's queue, the draft left open yesterday, the two things waiting for an answer. The exact form depends on the work. What stays the same is whose screen it is.
Charts and announcements still need a home. Give them one, somewhere quiet, where people can find them when they are curious and the buyer can find them in the demo.
New: try Pulse surveys
ExploreHeadcount this year
Waiting for you: 2 leave requests
ReviewYesterday you were working on the March rota (draft). Continue
Therefore:
Give the first screen to the person's own work: what they were doing, what has changed since, and the one or two things they do most. Put charts and announcements somewhere quieter.
In practice. Ask five customers what they do first after opening the product. Compare their answers with the top half of the first screen.
Goes with. Carrying on depends on THE PRODUCT REMEMBERS YOU (45). The first screen is the plainest case of ONE SCREEN, ONE PURPOSE (61), and its lists should be LISTS THAT ANSWER THE QUESTION (69).