Background

Instantis, a startup in Sunnyvale California, had by 2000 created a Web application development platform, SiteWand. The platform could read any HTML form and create an Oracle database for it. Further form input was then stored in the database. The business model was to lease the platform to enterprises wishing to develop eCommerce sites without actually writing any J2EE or other code, or configuring (or owning) a database server.

SiteWand was in a semi-mature stage; key features worked, but it needed more capabilities, more work in the user interaction, and much improvement in the user interface.

Click image to use this demo: login with ID = flash, pwd = mrcool. There have been some changes since I worked on SiteWand...

Approach

There was no functional specification. I began by reverse-engineering user task flows from the scenarios currently in the product, and reviewing those with stakeholders. I collected input on required new features, and began revising the graphic appearance and layout. This enabled me to draw a high-level roadmap of the entire system, including existing and proposed scenarios.

Who were the users? Management's intended users occupied a spectrum from 'mom and pop' online business owners, to corporate employees with good development skills. We agreed on four personas to represent this broad range. These descriptive personas, complete with a representative photo, list of capabilities and weaknesses, occupied a wall visible to the team. Why did we develop personas? Because we did not have access to real users.

Then the task was to write a functional specification for each revised scenario with Engineering, Marketing, and the CEO. Once approved, I then redesigned each scenario via task flows and paper wireframes, and presented those to the consensus-building process. The paper wireframe discussions helped us catch and correct many potential usability problems.


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