CorelDRAW for mac Print & imposition workflow
A 10 week project covering the transition of CorelDRAW's comprehensive print and imposition workflows into a native feeling macOS experience.
Attribution: Davidmorgans CC BY-SA 4.0
THE PROBLEM
How do we present CorelDRAW's comprehensive print and imposition workflows in a manner that would make loyal users of both CorelDRAW and macOS feel at home?
CorelDRAW has been a windows-only application for almost 20 years. Our team was tasked with redesigning the entire suite from from the bottom up with the goal of crafting a native macOS application that would make both users of CorelDRAW and macOS users feel at home.
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To tackle this ambitious project, the 7 person UX team divided the application into parts that were distributed amongst the team. I was responsible for the print, imposition and export workflows outlined in this case study.
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An additional challenge was that management had requested that this stay a secret project for strategic reasons until much later in the cycle. We made the best of the situation leveraging internal users of CorelDRAW for early feedback, immersing ourselves in the apple ecosystem for several months before the project started and doing thorough secondary research.
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HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
The bulk of this project occurred over the span of 8-10 weeks not all of which were consecutive.
THE TEAM
I was the sole UX for this project but frequently consulted with the 6 other UX designers working on CorelDRAW for mac.
KEY GOAL
Transition CorelDRAW's comprehensive print workflow into a native feeling macOS experience
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
We decided to take a balanced approach that wouldn't overwhelm early adopters but sets the stage for the solution to grow with feedback from our print production users.
The Print and production persona of CorelDRAW spends a lot of time in the print and imposition workflows in their daily work. Other more creatively oriented personae also use the print and imposition functionality but to a lesser extent.​
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Past knowledge of our user base tells us that the more creatively inclined personae are earlier adopters compared to the print production persona that would be the primary target of the full-fledged print workflow. So, for the first version of the mac application it was decided that a balanced approach that wouldn't overwhelm early adopters, but sets the stage for the solution to grow in complexity based on user feedback in future versions.
IMPOSITION
Imposition is the act of laying out pages for print on larger sheets of paper in an arrangement to meet specific needs. Those needs could range from being economical with paper to printing pages out in a pattern that can later be folded into a booklet.
The imposition work flow is the realm of the print production persona. The other creative personae do use these tools occasionally when working DIY projects or to prep files to send to printers, but the current tool opens up full screen in an intimidating experience that almost feels like a separate application. We sought to pare down the imposition workflow into a form more digestible to novice users that focuses on positioning and printers marks.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DISCOVERY PHASE
Immersion into the Apple ecosystem
The first step in the process was to dive into the apple ecosystem to get our hands wet (with shiny new mac book pros!) We observed and shared our learnings -- everything from the expected order of buttons in a dialog box to the myriad nuanced gestures that make up a macOS experience.
Apple Human-Interface Guidelines
Apple has extensive documentation that elementally breaks down the appearance and expected interaction with their native controls. We studied the documentation closely in the months leading up to the project.
Competitor research
We looked at other apps available on macOS to get an idea of the spectrum of what's out there for both graphics and other applications. Apps ranged from having a 100% custom platform independent design to a near 100% compliance with Apple guidelines. The latter were best supported on mac app store.
Inventory of all print and imposition functionality
A thorough breakdown was performed of all functionality, obvious and hidden relationships, and states of the controls in the existing print and imposition dialogs. These documents were shared with development in order to get early high level scoping done. Decisions were also made to agree on what controls or aspects of the workflow were not feasible to bring forward given the time available.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EXPLORATION PHASE
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THREE INITIAL DIRECTIONS
Use the OS provided print dialog
The OS provided print dialog is very easy to use and has just enough functionality to cover printing needs of the vast majority of applications out there. CorelDRAW, however, comes with functionality such as colour separation, trapping and preflight that would be a shame to lose. The provided dialog can be customized to an extent, but does not have nearly enough real estate to contain all the required controls.
A distilled CorelDRAW print dialog
A version of the print dialog that has only the most essential controls, with a "Show Details" button that folded out the more advanced tabs and controls similar to the macOS print dialog. Although compelling, it was decided that this direction would be put on hold for a future release when more user feedback could be obtained and also to limit UX and dev effort.
Stay true to the original
A near one to one transliteration
of the print dialog's controls laid out in a manner that resembles the macOS print dialog in its expanded state. Given the time available this direction was deemed most appropriate and was true to the main goal of this project. Long time CorelDRAW users have all the tabs and controls they are used to but new macOS users don't need to stray from the first tab.
Establishing the high level user flow
A rough sketch of the thinking behind the print and imposition workflows. During this process it was discovered that two distinct imposition dialogs would need to be develop to create a seamless and clear workflow.
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Users can start thinking about imposition while working on their artwork so they need route to access imposition without accessing the print dialog. Exiting out of this dialog returns to the workflow.
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Users in a print production workflow however use the imposition tools in tandem with the print dialog.
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Sheet or no sheet?
Once the overall flow was established, sketches and later clickable prototypes were shared with internal users to arrive at a decision whether or not the print and imposition dialogs should be standlone, sheets or some combination of the two.
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The arrangement that felt best was to have the document workflow imposition dialog attached to the app window, but the print production version attached to a standalone print dialog.
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Although straying a little from textbook definition of a sheet, this pattern of having a sheet "follow the user" in their workflow is found in some areas of the OS. Having both dialogs as sheets left users feeling lost.
Concepts
A sample of one of the workflow concepts that was discarded. Launching imposition tools as a stand alone dialog made it hard for a user to understand whether clicking on OK or cancel would lead back to the application or the Print sheet.
Iterations
Mockups marked up by colleagues with comments and suggestions.
The design underwent several rounds of iteration and intensive group critique.
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FINAL DESIGN
Finalized designs were presented to development in the form of marked-up mockups as well as detailed stories that break down requirements.
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The project though released, is still in its infancy and we are eagerly awaiting user feedback that will help grow the solution in a direction that truly meets user needs.
