As designers, we're always looking for ways to make application experiences better for our users. With PC*MILER 27 we had the opportunity to update the overall experience of the application, as well as the look and feel.
One of the first places we looked when redesigning PC*MILER was the overall organization of the application. PC*MILER is packed with great features, but we found that sometimes our users had difficulty finding them. So we decided to adopt the same Ribbon pattern used throughout Microsoft Office and the Windows operating system. The Ribbon allowed us to organize all the features of the application into a better structure than the old menu and toolbars. In addition, we were also able to update the application icons to bring together a better visual design for PC*MILER. We hope that this new look and navigation structure makes all the features more discoverable.
While we made many changes to improve PC*MILER, we constantly challenged ourselves with the following question. How do we make things easier to use for new users while also keeping the application familiar to our long time users? To answer this, we kept the core workflow of PC*MILER unchanged. The application may feel a bit different at first, but after a few minutes of use it should start to feel like the familiar PC*MILER. The main focus of the application is still routing and the keyboard shortcuts from previous versions of PC*MILER will work the same in PC*MILER 27.
We are all happy with the improvements made in PC*MILER 27 but don't worry, we're not going to stop here. We'll continue to improve workflows and features as well as add new features to make PC*MILER even better. PC*Miler 27 is just the beginning of our new journey!
By Brian Richards, Senior Designer
