XenSource, Inc., is a company that supported the development of the open source project and enterprise applications of the software. As UX Program Manager I led the design and initial development for XenCenter, the the administration console for the XenSource virtualization platform. I successfully shipped three full versions of XenServer and XenCenter prior to the Citrix acquisition.
XenSource, Inc. was acquired by Citrix Systems in October 2007.
I was hired to re-design and oversee the development of the existing XenServer management console called XenCenter, the new version is Windows-based. I developed the product requirements by evaluating existing Java (Linux) product. Incorporating user feedback with feature analysis from competitive product’s and input from the Xen user forums. Once we had an initial set of requirements we refined and iterated on the features, functionality, usability, interactions, and interface elements.
I led a team of contracted developers and outsourced some of the visual design elements (icons) to build a working prototype. We coordinated the adoption of development to the existing development team in Cambridge and Palo Alto, and integrated into the XenServer development and product teams.
Below are a few key screens in the product to give an idea of the overall look and feel of the final UI. These were done mostly in Photoshop.
The spec includes:
- Information architecture
- Actions and states
- Redlines
- Menus with keyboard shortcuts
- Wizard specs (all inclusive) and redlines
As we progressed in the design process we discontinued the use of one big design document and used a wiki site to post UI speclets that were feature specific.
This made it easier for new developers to come on board, not to have to weed through the specs to find a particular portion of the UI.
These were saved down from confluence, our wiki server. Note: The translation to .pdf files resulted in a loss of some formatting.
The speclets here are more general. They are overall product design, but not tied to any specific features. We based the overall standards on the Microsoft guide to Windows UI.
We added advanced search capabilities that included search by type; text (string) tag or group, and recent searches.
We used “Chris” as the main persona to drive our early user centered designs. I created Chris as part of a team-building exercise that included the development, design and PM teams. It helped build buy-in across the teams, and turned out to be a rather fun exercise.
We offered a 30 day trial and wanted a way to let users know how long they had left on their trial period. We also wanted them to have an easy way to purchase a license without leaving the product.
Try-Buy Specification
I came up with the XenRocks design that was used in the product and for all of our media and marketing materials.
