Lavasoft 2006-2011
From 2006 to 2011, I worked at Lavasoft—makers of the popular anti-spyware software Ad-Aware. I was originally hired as Interaction and User Interface Designer for Ad-Aware, but came to take on responsibilities for some marketing and e-commerce work as well.
In late 2009, I was promoted to Product Manager, and after getting a Scrum Product Owner certification, I took the role as Product Owner for Ad-Aware in early 2010. More detailed descriptions and images of my work can be found below.
Agile Product Management
As Product Manager, I had the role as Product Owner in the agile development process used on the Ad-Aware project.
The job included gathering feedback from users and stakeholders, which was broken down into functional requirements. I planned and prioritized these requirements according to business value and scheduled them into releases. Finally, I collaborated with the development team to elaborate user stories from the requirements, and the stories were planned into sprints.
During my time as PM, I structured the product development process, making it more predictable for stakeholders and less volatile for the development team by preventing last-minute additions of functionality. I was Ultimately responsible for planning two major product version releases—the only two releases completed on schedule during my five years at the company.
Interaction Design
In my capacity as Interaction Designer, I was responsible for Ad-Aware's user interface, from the information architecture down to interaction descriptions and specifications for all functionality. I carried out two major redesigns of the UI, as well as numerous iterative refinements based on user testing and customer feedback.
In addition to extensive pencil-and-paper sketching, I used a wide range of design methods, such as card sorting, wireframes, flow diagrams and storyboards. S usability testing.
User Interface Design
In addition to Ad-Aware's behavior, I was also in charge of its appearance, designing the vast majority of the graphics for the user interface, including icons, controls and background textures.
The UI design work also included writing behavioral specifications for GUI controls in Lavasoft's custom UI graphics framework.
Marketing, Web Design & Illustration
During my first year at Lavasoft, there was a need for design work in all departments, and I ended up taking on some marketing and web design work, in addition to my work on the Ad-Aware GUI. During this time, I designed the templates for both the company's newsletter, Lavasoft News, and an internal mailer called Magma Monthly, as well as a number of illustrations for various sections on lavasoft.com.
As part of my marketing work I managed the successful implementation of TrialPay as a way of converting Freeware users into paying customers. The TrialPay work included the creation of a range of campaign landing pages on the Lavasoft website, as well as print ads in various newspapers and magazines.