AVO Chief

I came from the internet heyday when the user experience was trumpeted as the holy grail of application development. As a designer I worked under a head of User Experience and the UI was a key focus of many development projects. That has never left me. I still believe products that have distanced themselves over competitors usually have a User Experience advantage like Apple in its design of iTunes and iPhone.

If you look at the competitive SaaS market the winners over time will be those who focus on UI in regards to how it affects the User Experience. Central Desktop seems to understand this now. Originally although Central Desktop has been a good-value sharepoint alternative it has left something to be desired in the User Experience arena. It was a good value and its layout and flow felt like it at times. Well that may now be changed because over the weekend Central Desktop launched its redesigned user interface and made huge strides in User Experience. .

The product’s 2.0 version, employs new features that help make the user interface more intuitive, easier to use and follow the task flow. It has created some new wizards, templates, drop-down menus and layout customization options.

Intuitiveness has a lot to do with User Experience and that means not having to over think tasks that should be simple. The online file viewer now allows more file types, including Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF and Photoshop, JPEG and TIF. This is one of those things which make a big impact because after its introduced, people can forget about it. And that’s a good thing. In other words some features should be things that allows the user to take it for granted. PDF file viewing and conversion should be automatic because it is such a big part of tech tasks (from a tech user perspective) and the new tools in Central Desktop will help streamline the feel or flow.

As mentioned in other reviews Central Desktop may not be the right match for everyone especially for very large enterprises. But where Central Desktop really shines is in the advantage, value and now user experience it gives to companies between 100 and 1,000 employees.

This is just a quick first pass review of the new release. We invite others to share your experiences and review with Central Desktop. AVO Chief is looking for additional value-oriented product reviewers feel free to comment on this review or submit to us your own full review.

Written by AVO Chief

Efren Duarte is Director of Products & Services and AVO Chief (Strategist/Evangelist) at Avocera Products & Services Consulting and principal of the AVMI Group, a market research based venture management firm. The AVO Chief provides 2-Week Money Back Guarantee Product Marketing/Management Services Trial for qualified Startups and SMBs with growth potential. Inquire at avochief@ymail.com for more details.

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