McAfee Endpoint Upgrade Assistant
Problem and context:
One of the biggest problems plaguing McAfee's Endpoint Security product was just how difficult it was to upgrade from older versions of legacy software. Even the simplest upgrades required checking for compatibility to ensure minimum “upgradable” versions were present in the environment. The more complex upgrades had multiple dependencies and often required “ripping and replacing” products on systems.
Key challenges:
IT administrators with complex environments were dealing with a mix of PCs in different states, and every installation required IT administrators to do manual work to mitigate dependencies incompatibilities, and identify when systems were in a ready state to upgrade.
Solution:
Working closely with engineering to understand the technical workflow, I lead the design for the tool called the Endpoint Upgrade Assistant. This guided users through the process of preparing their environments for upgrades, and could complete batch actions.
I divided the workflow into multiple steps: Overview, Prepare, Upgrade and Track, and utilized color coding to identify the state of each batch of systems in the environment.
After testing using a clickable prototype I developed in Axure, the team moved forward and built the tool. I worked on this product on an ongoing basis over a year and a half, and made multiple iterative improvements based on end user feedback.
Value delivered:
Provided IT administrators with a simple interface to manage a large number of PCs and ensure they have the latest McAfee enterprise software
Created an interactive Axure prototype that allowed for quick user feedback cycles without relying on development to code
