Human-Centered Design Drove Design of New Management Console

At Webroot, we could go on and on about user experience (UX) design. The study of the way we interact with the tools we use has spawned entire industries, university programs and professions. A Google Scholar search of the term returns over 300,000 results. Feng Shui, Leonardo Davinci and Walt Disney are all described as important precedents for modern UX. It’s also something software companies spend a fair amount of time thinking about, even cybersecurity companies.

April 27 marks the release of the re-designed Webroot business console, and our team of UX designers had plenty to think about in terms of inspiration for our first major business management console re-design in more than 10 years. Ultimately, it was decided that console’s facelift would be guided by the principle of “human-centered design,” or HCD.

The International Standards Organization describes HCD as “an approach to interactive systems development that aims to make systems usable and useful by focusing on the users and their needs and requirements, and by applying human factors/ergonomics, and usability knowledge and techniques.”

Ultimately, human-centered design entails giving people the tools they need to accomplish what they set out to do. It can refer to designing products to help individuals overcome their disabilities or making sure a driver feels like he’s behind the wheel of an Indy Car every time the engine turns over. As CIO puts it, “human-centered design focuses on the human first.”

HCD and the New Webroot Management Console

The humans we put first are our users–more specifically, in terms of our business products, managed service providers (MSPs) and small to midsize businesses (SMBs). These groups have varying pain points they need addressed by our software. MSPs tend to need multi-site, multi-tenant capabilities for managing many clients, whereas SMBs typically require a simplified console that’s easy to use. So, in accordance with HCD, we’ll be releasing a separate console for each.

That’s not the only way we considered the user in refreshing our console, though. Our UX and product management teams directly discussed desired improvements with more than 50 top users and incorporated feedback from hundreds of users through the community, wire frames, usability tests and conversations. Enhancements were made based on this customer research.

All this led to a cleaner, more intuitively designed management console that we hope puts the needs of the user first. It’s our hope that HCD will make the lives of our business customers easier, removing some of the barriers they encounter with the software they use to make their clients and businesses more secure.

For more release details, specific improvements made and screenshots of the new console, download the full product bulletin here.

George Anderson, Director, Product Marketing, has spent the past 20 years in the IT Security industry in roles for Computacenter (Europe’s leading systems integrator) and as global product marketing lead for Clearswift (a data loss prevention, email and web security vendor). For the past 9 years he has been with Webroot, where he is currently responsible for product marketing for the company’s business security division–Endpoint and DNS Protection and Webroot Security Awareness Training.

George Anderson

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