CASE STUDies > product and ux design

ux design
identity access management software product

TABLE OF CONTENTS

case study

OVERVIEW

brief

process

DELIVERABLES

videos

links

 

OVERVIEW

CLIENT

-  Symantec Corporation   

LOCATION

-  Mountain View, CA / Silicon Valley
-  San Francisco, CA

INDUSTRY

-  Enterprise security software

company PROFILE

-  $6.3B company
-  World's 3rd largest software developer

TECHNOLOGIES

-  Information security
-  Identity access management (IAM)
-  Single sign-on (SSO)

PRODUCT(S)

-  VIP Access Manager 
-  Symantec Identity Access Manager
-  Symantec SSO (single sign-on) Portal

PROJECTs / FEATUREs / DELIVERABLEs

-  SSO Portal UI redesign

background

Symantec Identity Access Manager is an enterprise security software solution that allows administrators to create complex policies to manage user identity and application access, both inside and outside of the enterprise network.

The back-end of this system allows for enterprise administration. The front-end, customer-facing piece of the system is called the SSO (single sign-on) Portal. With a single login to the SSO portal, which serves as an aggregation point for login credentials, users gain one-click access to all their applications and websites.

This case study highlights the user interface redesign of the SSO Portal. Due to challenges discussed in the following sections, the SSO Portal had a woefully dated and unintuitive user interface. As the public face of the solution, with tens of thousands of users, an interface redesign offered the highest UX value with the least amount of resources, which was critical given the constraints of the project. 

problem

Symantec saw Identity Access Management (IAM) companies infringing into the security space and its stronghold with other industry-standard products. It was evident that a new, integrated, product roadmap in the Symantec User Authentication group of products was necessary. But the company had no foothold in this IAM space. 

solution

Like many big companies in such cases, Symantec first went on a shopping spree. They acquired a password-bank, software company in Spain, with the intention of using this intellectual property to form the single sign-on component of the solution. When talks to buy another IAM company fell through, the company did something it does not do often these days. It decided to build a v1.0 product from scratch. 

Challenges

This software was rushed to market for a number of reasons. In a company and industry known for enormous pressure and tight deadlines, the stakes were taken to another new level. Also, given its importance as a new high-profile project, and an integrated piece of the larger product roadmap, there were many eyes from all levels of the enterprise watching this work. 

Symantec is a company of mature products and acquisitions. The culture and was not conducive to the chaos inherent in v1.0 products. The product required a startup mentality in an extraordinarily large enterprise organization. 

No structured development methodology, such as Agile, was applied to the development lifecycle . The project was spearheaded by a distinguished engineer, so project focus was slanted towards engineering work, to the detriment of project management best practices and UX strategy.

Due to all of the aforementioned issues, UX participation had been minimal or absent. There were pervasive misunderstandings about the role and value of UX work in general, especially because of the engineering-centric approach to the project. These attitudes made it difficult to gain traction and momentum with the project. UX work was ultimately initiated only months before final release.

Although there was a small window to implement UX and interface work prior to release, the product was already close to code freeze when design began. Design work could only include improvements and changes that would not cause back-end development. This limitation lead to comprises.

Outcome 

The project was completed in less than three months, just as the product was approaching the official v1.0 release. At that point, the redesign was presented at a major milestone meeting with product managers, program managers, and VPs. The response was overwhelmingly positive and the new interface was quickly and officially slated for inclusion in v1.0. Major stakeholders felt the improvements the redesign brought would radically improve usability and product reception, bolstering initial sales.

By the end of the same year, Symantec folded this product into another more mature product: Symantec VIP. This move allowed the company to offer a more comprehensive and complementary suite of integrated security products. You can read about my work on the Symantec VIP product in this case study.

RESEARCH

Armed with a list of a dozen major players in the Identity Access Management market, I began researching offerings. At the same time, I began to explore and deconstruct the features in our own software.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

In my research, I benchmarked competitor features and developed a thorough understanding of our strengths and weaknesses in the marketplace. I used this information to create a competitive analysis that highlighted the modifications and additions that would define the success of the project

USABILITY TESTING

In order to gain buy-in for the redesign, we conducted usability testing with colleagues in one of Symantec's usability labs. The documented results of the testing irrefutably demonstrated the shortcomings in the existing UI and forced naysayers to acknowledge that a UX redesign was essential.

WIREFRAMES

Using the requirements in my competitive analysis, I created flows and wireframes to represent new and modified features.

COMPS

From wireframes, I proceeded to visual design. This work was primarily an aesthetic facelift. However, some solutions, such fixing the confusing sort filters, were addressed with new interactions.

PRESENTATION AND SALES

With pixel-perfect comps completed, the process of selling the new redesign began. Although there had been consensus regarding problems in the existing UI, adoption of the new design was not ensured without extensive evangelizing to key project stakeholders. Once universally accepted, the spec for the redesign was handed off to the front-end developer, who completed the prototype and in turn handed off the code to the core development team for implementation.