QuarkXPress 8.0
My Role
After working at a startup (Local Matters) for a year, I returned to Quark to help lead the QuarkXPress 8.0 UI redesign. I traveled worldwide to research users of QuarkXPress. I co-led a ten person UX team from initial UI concepts to the official release of QuarkXPress 8.0 which resulted in the most critically acclaimed version in the history of the company. In 2007 I was promoted to UX team lead and drove the user experience for all Quark products from 2007 - 2010.
The project was awesome for a lot of reasons. The team was great, and it was a wonderful experience to oversee a UX design project of such huge scope.
“The new interface is simpler, cleaner, and easier to work with, and because of that streamlining, feels a bit faster too. Quark has avoided Adobe’s tendency to overcomplicate the interface, and instead has made its capabilities easily accessible without getting in your way.”
Some highlights of the QuarkXPress 8.0 redesign. The UX team created a print book (top) using QuarkXPress to show the value that the UX improvements would have. The book was the key to winning the approval for the redesign being the key feature set for version 8.
“QuarkXPress 8 manages one of the most difficult tasks in software development — rethinking the user interface to make it more efficient, more productive, and more enjoyable, without alienating the experienced user. The potential productivity gains of the new release should be considerable.”
“The minimalist interface is a refreshing antidote to InDesign’s clutter, and the toolset enables you to rotate containers, grab and resize images within containers with a minimum of hassle. ”
Quark product managers and usability experts talk about QuarkXPress 8 and give insights into new features and functionality.