From 2005 – present, Bluebeam Revu has been one of the leading PDF markup, editing, and viewing solutions for the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) industry. Leveraging the PDF format, it digitizes the traditionally paper-based workflows and processes. For 16+ years I pushed every pixel, with my involvement including UI/UX, all icons, cursors and in-app asset creation.
Going from proof of concept to working software only took a couple of months thanks to some amazing engineers. To aid with the quick turnaround, I prototyped interactions and UI behavior within Macromedia Flash. Because of our limited resources, a completely themed and branded UI wasn’t a possibility yet. Icon work began as a mix of stock symbols from Illustrator that gradually became custom as time allowed for more iterations.
A lot Bluebeam’s brand growth happened during this five year period. Not only did we iterate through four major versions of Revu, our user base drastically shifted from less Architecture and Engineering to more Construction, due in part to the Great Recession of 2007 - 2009. The product itself started to reflect this audience, and more of the UX was designed around their processes and ways of working with traditional paper drawings.
Since I was responsible for the creative in Marketing as well as much of the UI/UX in the product, the two reflected each other to create a cohesive brand. Dark and light themes, and a multitude of other visual refinements to the UI were introduced, plus I redrew all the icons to complete the look.
With Bluebeam firmly growing its roots in the tech stack of all major AEC firms, we pushed the brand’s visual style and tone further and embraced the “No limits” era for five years. It was also during this time that Bluebeam became cross-platform, with Revu on the PC, Mac, and iPad.
More so than ever, the UI was fully stylized in-line with the brand. I updated the theme colors to be darker and brighter, and accented points of interaction with our branded blue color. As our users were very visual, I redrew the icons to both compliment the new themes and introduce color-coding - we came to find that during this period of Revu’s history, our users heavily relied on this as a means of learning the UI.
Of the UX changes introduced, the most prominent was an entirely new IA at the top of the interface in the form of a ribbon-like control to help simplify and reduce the steps it took for users to find their tools.
Also, after a decade of the pen as Bluebeam Revu’s application icon, I created a new logo to represent this dynamic refresh of our software’s UI and company’s brand. We registered this as a trademark, and it became a central asset to all our marketing material.
With five years of “No limits” behind us, Bluebeam looked to the future. The product was getting more technical and less friendly, and a new generation of users were having difficulty on-boarding in to the platform. Thus, the Product team was tasked with giving it new life.
Again, my roll oversaw updates to the UI/UX, theme colors, iconography and cursors. Since an entire re-write of the application was out of the question, we worked with what we could change to make Revu less intimidating.
To reduce the overall real-estate needed for UI elements, we created the Dynamic Properties Toolbar, which streamlined a lengthy list of controls down to a single row 35px tall at the top of the UI shell.
The main UI shell, 300+ dialogs, all icons, cursors, and all controls and their states. Practically every last part of Revu’s interface was updated in 2018. Much of this initiative was around increasing discover-ability and, as a result, our users began finding “new” features and functionality when in fact it had been there all along.
After nearly two decades of working on Revu, I moved on from Bluebeam. Where will it go from here as it enters its twilight years? Only time will tell.