Web Application Software

My web design career began in 1999 with Netage, of West Newton, MA, who were developing a unique web-based team workplace application, called virtualteams. I developed 3 or 4 rapid prototypes for an evolving design. Web software development for a product like virtualteams is a different process than ordinary web sites.

This "web-based team workplace" was a complex project. The concept: a team consisting of several or many geographically distributed members could work efficiently even with the reduced travel for face-to-face meetings that shrinking budgets universally required. Teams could meet virtually, each connected to a single secure web site that housed their project plans, task assignments and schedules, meeting agendas and minutes, and growing store of member-generated documents. Designed and utilized properly, such a workspace would engender the good team relations and communication necessary to overcome their distributed circumstances.

The application was to be based on a model for effective teamwork designed by the company founders, using a framework of people, purpose, links and time. The challenges were many, but focused on marrying the teaming model to both a novel database schema and unique (at the time) functionality for the user. As product design manager my role was to design and build working prototypes with which all concerned would hammer out details, and which could be handed to the software engineering staff for buildout. In a fast-track development project, the prototypes became critical parts of the functional specifications documentation. The project experienced many of the difficulties that crippled myriad web startups in that late dotcom era. The product was ultimately realized as a module in a larger enterprise workflow and document management suite.