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At TechSmith, we're constantly looking for ways to improve your experience - whether you're interacting with our website, using our software, calling in for tech support or to sales... and, SnagIt 9 is no different. We observed, studied, tested prototypes, and interviewed many different users about their experiences with SnagIt 9 before we released it. Your experience matters to us and we want it to be a great one! And, on that note, I'll let Sylvania Dye of the User Experience group explain their role in the development of Snagit 9. Enjoy and comment away!

The User Experience group works hand-in-hand with the development team from minute one of each new SnagIt release. The most important part of SnagIt for all of us is our customers, and our goal for SnagIt 9 was to mold SnagIt to the customer’s natural workflow, creating a flexible, worry-free environment where the customer can focus on being productive and creative. All of our decisions from very early on were born of this philosophy.

We started by conducting user studies even before version 8 was released. Using Morae, we watched people use SnagIt to learn not only what they did with our software, but what they didn’t do and why. Throughout the design process for SnagIt 9, we continually presented our ideas to customers using techniques ranging from traditional usability testing to exploratory methods in which we watched people do things they would want to do in SnagIt – combine images, mark them up, find images, etc. – using paper, pens, and physical tools rather than software. This research, combined with all of the feedback we’ve received over the years from our customers and the largest beta testing program in SnagIt’s history, informed our designs, which we repeatedly updated, retested, and updated again.

Several of our new features, including multi-image editing and the integration of the Catalog Browser functionality into the new Editor, had the potential to make SnagIt more complicated and harder to use. It was crucial to all of us that using SnagIt was easier and more flexible than ever before, and that presented some unique design challenges. Through team brainstorming, techniques such as root cause analysis and cognitive walkthroughs, and many types of customer research, the design for SnagIt 9 gradually evolved through paper-and-pencil mockups through rough interactive prototypes to the final design, with many sanity- and reality-checks along the way.

After exploring several ways of arranging tools in Editor, Microsoft’s new ribbon system stood out for several reasons: it’s highly visual, it’s compact and flexible, and, in our own usability tests, we were amazed at how easy it was for people to learn and use. And, of course, since many of our customers use SnagIt in tandem with Microsoft Office, our ribbon makes it easier to switch between them.

Do you know why SnagIt 9 is black? I’ll let you in on a little secret – it’s not because black is cool and trendy, but because the black interface makes content stand out. Since the point of SnagIt is to make and share great creative content, we felt that the interface shouldn’t be competing for attention, but should fade away and allow people to focus on their content. A dark interface and subdued colours in the Editor UI do just that, and your content “pops.”

The process of designing SnagIt 9 was very involved and challenging, but loads of fun. Our developers are the most talented and creative I’ve ever met, and the loyalty and enthusiasm of our customers is both inspiring and humbling. I’m truly proud of what we’ve done with SnagIt 9 and I hope you love it, too!

Favourite New Feature:

It’s gotta be the open captures tray… being able to just capture-capture-capture and not worry about saving. It’s fabulous.

Sylvania Dye is User Experience Designer for SnagIt. She has been designing graphics and software since the mid 1990s, and has been with TechSmith for 4½ years.