I'm a believer in making user-friendly and attractive interface to IT solutions.
The question is; why is it still so rarely found when it comes to Enterprise software?
Khoi Vinh, Design Director at NYtimes.com, wrote a post about it.
Further reading, 37signals, the legendary company that is "committed to building the best web-based software products possible with the least number of features necessary", added their thoughts about the topic.
37signlas point is that "the people who buy enterprise software aren't the people who use enterprise software. That’s where the disconnect begins. And it pulls and pulls and pulls until the user experience is split from the buying experience so severely that the software vendors are building for the buyers, not the users. The experience takes a back seat to the feature list, future promises, and buzz words."
Great point.