During my 12-week internship on the Adobe Illustrator team, I conducted user testing, explored feature iterations, and collaborated closely with engineers to deliver a solution that enhances how designers engage with their clients. The Client Presentation feature enables designers to present their work seamlessly while empowering users to provide feedback through in-app annotations, elevating the overall presentation experience.
Overview
Design a solution that enhances designer-client collaboration, driving increased adoption of Adobe Illustrator on the iPad for both parties.
Solution
Develop a presentation feature that: (1) allows designers to present their work in an intuitive and streamlined way, (2) provides clients with tools to offer real-time comments and annotations, and (3) allows designers to make live edits during presentations for a more interactive and efficient experience.
Timeline
3 months
My Role
User Experience Design, User Experience Research, Brand Design, Product Thinking, Contextual Inquiry, Wireframing, Rapid Prototyping
I first collected user research from the researcher on our team, Laura. Laura performed user testing with illustrators and graphic designers from the United States and Japan.
If I can just hand them a pen and say, "Here, show me," that helps me, because I'm visual, and then they're not writing it out. It also makes it faster for the both of us.
Key findings from the user interviews revealed:
To kick off my design explorations, I analyzed key presentation apps on the iPad to inform the user experience for the presentation feature. I examined both their strengths and weaknesses, focusing on how their features addressed user needs. This analysis allowed me to iterate on a solution that effectively solves user pain points. I drew insights from platforms such as Apple Keynote, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Google Slides.
Google Slides
Microsoft Powerpoint
As part of my design explorations, I identified key elements critical to a presentation workflow, including the ability to display speaker notes, the current slide, and upcoming slides. In addition, users have an easy way to exit the presentation mode.
I developed user personas to better define the target users for this feature. The two main personas were:
Charlie
Presenter’s View when connecting iPad to monitor
Nicholas
Presenting designs to clients on the iPad:
To kick off the design process, I created a UX Flow Chart to visualize the various tasks a user could perform within the presentation feature. This helped me conceptualize user actions like managing artboards, adding presentation notes, and creating or commenting on edits within the canvases.
Before wireframing, I sketched out the basic layout of the presentation feature and discussed the user flows with my team to assess which were intuitive or needed refinement. The sketching phase allowed for rapid iteration based on feedback, ensuring an optimal user experience from the start.
Click here to view the prototype
Leveraging Adobe’s Design System, I incorporated their style and icons to create high-fidelity wireframes for the presentation feature. I iterated multiple times before finalizing the design. While the full experience is prototyped, here are a few key features:
Artboard Management
Users can arrange artboards, add speaker notes, reorder, or hide them to prepare for presentations, giving them full control over the presentation setup on the iPad.
Interactive Markup Tools
Designers and clients can easily access tools to draw, comment, and annotate directly on the artboard, facilitating hands-on feedback that designers can revisit and address.
Customizable presentation views & Link sharing:
Designers can toggle visibility for comments and markups within the presentation mode via a top-bar menu, providing flexibility for both presentations and working directly on the canvas.
Designers can generate a shareable link with customizable editing permissions. The link is automatically copied and ready for distribution, streamlining client collaboration.
Throughout the design process, I received feedback and quickly iterated to refine the final product. Each iteration involved thorough reviews with my manager, design team, and engineering team to align with stakeholder expectations. Below are the key improvements made during the process:
As I conclude my internship at Adobe, I’m proud to leave behind a presentation feature that is intuitive for both designers and clients. This feature will undergo further review for future releases of Adobe Illustrator on the iPad. Our UX researcher, Lauren, will continue testing my prototype, and the engineering team will begin integrating it into the beta app.
Reflecting on my time at Adobe, I am incredibly grateful for this experience. Designing for Adobe Illustrator, the very tool that sparked my passion for design, feels like a manifestation of my goals. While there were debates about expanding this feature beyond Adobe Illustrator to other Creative Cloud apps, I focused on building a simple yet powerful user experience that could serve as a foundation for broader application.
In a remote internship setting, I took the initiative to communicate effectively with my team, setting up meetings and asking questions when needed. My manager, Damon Nelson, shared that I initially struggled with pitching ideas to the team, but this taught me to embrace my potential and creativity. Special thanks to Damon Nelson for his support, and to Gabe Campbell for being an inspiring designer. I also want to thank Laura Herman, Mallika Yelandur, Sarah Smart, and Deepanjana Chakravarti for their guidance throughout this project!
