The value of user interface

If you've been following my content for a bit you probably know that I advocate for refactoring a lot, I however recently wrote about how backend heavy applications are "ugly" but work in a way that was complacent on the issue. The recent issue at Citibank pointed out the necessity of refactoring and user interface improvement. While many haven't read the articles that speak to what went wrong I plan to summarize it now.

A company (Revlon) is owing several entities money, Revlon is currently going through a rough patch and couldn't afford to settle their debt. (which is a lot). Revlon instructs Citibank to credit her (Revlon) creditors to the tune of $7.8 million (from Revlon's account). Citibank makes a mistake and pays the creditors more than they should have paid the creditors, more than they planned to pay the creditors. A total of $500 million excess remains as an expense on Citibank. Citibank is one of the biggest banks in the world as such this mistake is rather appalling.

Now you have to ask how it was possible to make an error that huge with the number of checks and balances in the banking system. It turns out that the software (used by Citibank's subcontractors) that was used to make the transfer was confusing to the personnel tasked with making the transfer, the boss of this personnel and the Senior personnel at Citibank. All three people approved the transaction before it went through and didn't realize the error till 24 hours later. Currently a judge has ruled that the money can't be returned to them for a number of reasons that I won't be getting into.

Now you're probably thinking "how confusing is this software that they could make an error this huge?"

Above is the user interface of the software used. A lot of organizations believe they are saving cash when they refuse to refactor or upgrade their software. From a business perspective they refuse to acknowledge that newer software performs faster, is cheaper to maintain, and is more ergonomic than older software. In conclusion, I believe with stronger advocacy by technical personnel within these organizations the leadership within the organizations in question will wake up to the value of continuous improvement of tools.