Open by Design: How IBM Partnered with the User Community in the Redesign of Lotus Notes Betsy Comstock Mary Beth Raven Sheri Branco Michelle Cooper Deb Maurer Betsy Comstock  User Studies Lead, IBM Lotus Notes IBM Lotus Software Group:

We’re talking about IBM Lotus Notes Suppose you suddenly needed a new, world-class UI … In mid 2005, IBM decided to completely revamp and modernize the User Experience Notes version 7, looked like this:

We had great access to this community of users Design Partners & Beta Programs Customers / Partners / Users who follow Lotus blogs & forums Other Customers with whom we have good relationships Vocal internal & external users Volunteer usability participants Users recruited to meet specific use criteria Annual Lotus conferences, briefings

What should we do with all these people?

We decided to deliberately open our design, to partner with these users

By the time Notes 8 shipped, we had incorporated input from…

over 2,000 users

So, how did we do???????

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Great Customer Feedback Lotus Notes 8 received a standing ovation at Lotusphere 2007