Deliverables:
- Interaction Design
- UI Specifications
- Usability Tests
- Contextual Interviews
- Persona definitions
- Prototypes
- Accessibility compliance
- Styleguide
Team Composition:
- Development
- Visual Design
- Internationalization
- Accessibility
- Documentation
- Marketing
NetBeans Java IDE
Involved: 1999 - 2004
NetBeans is the flagship free Java IDE from Sun Microsystems. The project is developed as an open source platform for developer tools and is used as a both an consumer application and a platform for all of Sun's developer tools. From the NetBeans website:
[NetBeans is] the original free and open source IDE. Develop cross-platform desktop, mobile and web applications based on industry standards utilizing the latest technologies with our full-featured integrated development environment for Java Software Developers.
Netbeans started as a small Czech company that was acquired by Sun Microsystems in the autumn of 1999. The development efforts have always focused on providing a best in class IDE for the Java programming language.
I started with NetBeans prior to Sun Microsystems acquiring the company. In the five years I spent working on the project I touched most parts of the applications -from fixing up a long laundry list of usability problems to defining completely new functionality and user interface components.
Working on the NetBeans project was an enormous undertaking that let me touch every part of a designer's life from research to design to negotiating with development teams on how best to move forward.
Screenshots
The volume of design work completed over the five year period on NetBeans is hard to capture in it's entirety as pieces come into the product and are then iterated on and retired in the next version. Collected here is a brief range of images -limited to those I had record of -that demonstrate the progression of both the product and my own sense as a designer.
Product Welcome Screen - Version 3.6 developed in 2003
Option System re-design. Still pending integration, this work takes
over 1800 options and whittles them down to a task relevant number around
200. This design was complete in 2002.
Original re-design of the New Document wizard in 2000 followed by the last revision in 2004. This wizard was tested and revised in just about every release from 2000.
Masthead image derived from: Stairs In Memory © Severin Koller for openphoto.net CC:Attribution