In my position at Geeknet, I led the design of SourceForge Downloads from conceptualization to a successful product launch in less than 4 months.
Highlights
Methods applied: User Interviews, Requirement Specification, Task Flow, Prototyping, and Web Analytics
Team: 5 Developers and 1 Designer
Overview video:
SourceForge Downloads is an update to the most important feature on SourceForge for the business and the open source community. It provides an interface for open source developers to upload and organize files. Open source software users can download these files from SourceForge.net or the project’s website. The service provides Download Statistics to track the number of downloads over time, geographic location of the downloaders, and the operating system of the users.
Responsibilities
Working with five developers and one other designer, I led the design efforts of the file manager, the download statistics visualization, and the integration with the rest of the site. I designed user interface elements, wrote the product specifications, and evaluated the work of the developers to make sure it met the specifications. I worked closely with the developers to communicate and clarify product requirements.
Process
Open source developers were the target users of the product, as they are the creators of open-source content. I conducted user interviews with these target users to better understand their needs. I also conducted an competitive analysis of competing services to understand the market landscape. Analyzing all the research data provided a clear direction for me to lead the product design.
Collaborating with another designer, I iterated over many prototypes moving from paper sketches to low fidelity mockups. Finally I combined the style guide and the low fidelity mockups to create final prototypes.
I closed worked with developers day-to-day combining user-centered design and agile programming methodologies. To help the engineering process, I prioritized the product requirements and evaluated the implementation.
Final Design
From my manager
“Mouly’s work at Geeknet has shown his abilities through a number of different areas. His initial work focusing around purely user research and engagement helped us set clear metrics for success around the launch of new websites within the company but the combination of that with his recommendations around user-centered design work helped carry that work forward. As the work that the company was focusing was evolved, Mouly also lead the charge around one of the three primary initiatives within SourceForge.net itself, focused on the Download Product. In that work, Mouly was able to bring together his talents around researching what both users and developers were looking for on a product-level while also harmonizing between a new interface and legacy interface — which having had to do so myself is no mean feat. The end result was the launch of new system that serves millions of people on a monthly basis and an interface that is one of the primary entry points into SourceForge.net.” – Jeffrey Bates, Vice President of Product, Geeknet