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"A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is a computer program that is so useful that people will buy a particular computer hardware, gaming console, and/or an operating system simply to run that program." - Wikipedia
The Netscape 4.0 animation
Hagan was the sole interface designer at Netscape for Netscape 1.0 through 3.0 on three platforms: Windows, Macintosh and Unix. For Netscape 4.0, Hagan was the lead designer, coordinating the work of a team of interface designers, visual designers, and usability specialists. Hagan worked at Netscape from 1994-1997. During the course of her work, Hagan developed some of the first web-based applications, embedded in the Netscape product. The Security user interface was entirely HTML based, as was the design for Document Information.
The design work for this first version of one of the great "Killer Applications" was completed in 2 months.
A pre-shipping screen shot of the 1.0 version of the Windows toolbar. An animation that was never used in the final product is shown here.
A Netscape 1.0 pre-release screen
These versions of the product added an entire Mail program and News reader, implemented in the native interface for each platform.
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| Netscape 3.0 Windows | Netscape 3.0 Macintosh |
Hagan wrote the complete specifications for Mail, the Address Book, the Compose Window, and of course changes to the Web Browser itself.
New features included:
One design goal was to ensure that the product was basically the same across platforms, with only variations for each platform's standards and guidelines. Of course there were also situations where some platforms had slightly different feature sets, as well.
The following windows (from Preferences) show how some of this design work came to pass:
Preferences on Windows
The Same Preferences on Macintosh
Macintosh Mail Reader (click to enlarge)
The next version of the product represented a second generation in design. The company began to focus on building high quality interfaces -- an entire user interface group was staffed and design work began in earnest. For the first time, the product had usability testing. We began to develop new ideas for a centralized task bar, spring loaded bookmark folders, and a new design for a toolbar - borderless, 3-dimensional, realistic, buttons.
Netscape 4.0 Design Concept (courtesy of Shuang Li)
Hagan was the the lead designer for this project and continued to work with engineering, marketing, sales, internationalization and documentation, while also coordinating the work of of a team of interface designers, visual designers, and usability specialists.
Hagan herself worked on the designs for:
Hagan was also a mentor to 3 new college hires and directed their design work in the following areas:
The new History window for 4.0. The new window allowed users to view sites they had visited and to sort this list based on name, URL and the date visited. Before this design, users had only the Back button to help them return to previously visited pages. And sites that they had visited the previous day just weren't available.
Netscape 4.0 History Window
Hagan developed the original idea for customizable, collapsable toolbars and one of the team's designers brought it to fruition.
Netscape 4.0 Moving Toolbars
In addition, Hagan was responsible for tracking and coordinating all the design efforts on the project. For example: The Mail and News part of 4.0 was designed by a member of Hagan's team. Hagan worked with the engineers and designer to come to agreement on the design direction and also ensured that the design fit well within the larger scheme of the product.
An early design for the Netscape 4.0 Mail reader, using tabs.
One of the key areas in Netscape 4.0 that Hagan designed was the Security interface.
The Netscape 4.0 Security Icon
This highly technical information about cryptography, encryption and data safety needed to be distilled down to a straightforward interface so that users on the internet would feel safe giving out credit card information. This design was to form the basis of safe commerce on the internet and has since been copied many times.
The initial concept was to create a Security Advisor, who would guide users through the pitfalls of secure transactions. This is an early demonstration of that idea:
A Concept for the Netscape 4.0 Security Advisor
The final design provided a centralized location where users could check up on the security features for Mail and web pages, as well as create and maintain their own security identity.
The Netscape 4.0 Security Info Window
This interface was implemented in HTML and JavaScript, making it the only truly cross-platform user interface code in the product and the first such shipping product to rely on HTML for an interface. This implementation also lead to some weaknesses in the design: a lower quality of interaction.
The design also relied on a toolbar icon that boiled down all the security information into a simple state: it's safe, it's not safe.
The Netscape 4.0 Security Icons (Courtesy of Shuang Li)
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