Aaron Brethorst

Alpha Ux to Usable Platform in 8 Weeks

I joined Skytap as the Senior Program Manager in 2007. There, I found a highly functional product without a user interface to match. I immediately set to work working with our CEO and Engineering organization to turn an Alpha product into something that our target market would passionately love.

Three weeks after starting, I delivered a 30 page report to the CEO outlining user experience deficiencies in the product and comprehensive suggestions on how to tackle the problem. After two rounds of reviews and minor edits, I embraced the startup ethos and started creating the user experience I had outlined.

Three weeks of intense work yielded a completely redesigned product. Two more weeks of bug fixing and polishing were required to finish the redesign, which would end up carrying us through product launch the following Spring.

Many Hats

I fervently believe that every employee of a startup must wear many hats. Although my title was Senior Program Manager, I threw myself into whatever role was required that month, week or day. Software engineer, graphic designer, interaction designer, usability engineer, product manager: you name it, I did it.

I bring the same passion and philosophy to my contract development work. If I can do it, I will. If I can’t, I’ll tell you that I’ll go figure it out and get back to you when it works.

This One Goes to 11

A year after joining, I started planning the next evolution of the Skytap Cloud user experience. The product was a real piece of enterprise software that happened to use HTML for its user interface. It needed an interface that married the best aspects of the web and desktop applications.

I built rough mockups of the new experience, started building internal consensus, shopped the designs to customers, usability tested them, and then stepped up to pixel-perfect mockups in order to gain management buy-in.

After gaining management buy-in, I executed on the plan as originally outlined and delivered it in record time. The new user interface was a resounding success for two key reasons:

• It was easier for the engineering team to use it, since it baked my user interface guidelines directly into the code. It was easier for the engineers to build the right thing than it was for them to build the wrong thing.

• Customers saw it as a major step up in terms of visual polish and ease of use.

Check out the product tour on the Skytap website. Almost one year after I left, you can still see my design in place, serving customers every day.