Bluebeam Revu is a PDF markup, editing, and viewing solution for the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) industry. For the 2018 release, the UI was updated, which included a streamlined UX for configuring item properties. My responsibilities spanned leading the UI and UX for the greater Revu product team.
In Bluebeam Revu, the Properties tab is used to change color, line weight, font styles, and a multitude of the other properties associated with its tools and user-placed markups. The content of the tab dynamically changes depend on what tool or markup is selected, thus making it a very active and universally used feature.
Because of Revu’s robust list of supported properties, the tab’s content often extended beyond the view-able window and required the use of scrollbars to navigate. This visually cluttered and complex solution became a problem for users. The tab had been in Revu since its 2005 launch and never utilized modern 16:9 ratio monitors.
Since Properties was used by virtually all users, the goal was to give it increased hierarchy within the UI, and a more streamlined presentation separate from other planned 2018 panel updates.
The first step towards providing a better experience was mapping out the current one. We compiled a list of every tool and feature within Revu that fed content into the Properties tab, and organized it within a spreadsheet.
Once we had the flow and general placement of where this new experience would be within Revu, I rapidly prototyped multiple scenarios for testing. As a user clicked on different tools, the toolbar at the top of the UI would dynamically update to show contextual properties.
Since the new Properties experience, named the Dynamic Properties Bar (or DPT for short), was very familiar to the old experience and it demanded much less UI real-estate, it was an immediate success. Through analytics, we saw less than 1% of our users choosing to turn off the DPT, which was on by default.