Fiery Driver
EFI’s Fiery Driver is a printer driver offering users a straightforward way to select powerful options for perfectly printed documents.
ROLE
Lead Designer
WHAT
Windows Software
TOOLS
Adobe XD, Photoshop
WHEN
2021
THE PROBLEM
Printing something tends to be a chore that we dread
The settings are confusing, there’s a 50/50 chance of a paper jam or we’ve run out of ink (which can only be replaced with proprietary ones). The print industry tends to be a bit slower on the uptake of new design and technology and it shows.
I joined EFI with an eagerness to change the way we print. In 2021, I was tasked to redesign the Fiery Driver - EFI’s printer driver for Fiery driven printer.
Expanding into the office printing market
EFI’s goal to target the market for office printing (the multifunction printers found in many workplaces) led to the push for a redesign of the Fiery Driver.
BUSINESS GOAL
What is a printer driver anyway and who makes them?
A printer driver is a program that takes a document from a device and translates it so a printer can it can be printed. It allows two pieces of hardware to communicate so that your digital creation can become a tangible, printed item. Printer drivers need to be downloaded and installed before something can be printed. This task is often a poor user experience but that’s a tale for a different case study.
I conducted a competitive analysis of other office printer drivers on the market by downloading Canon, Xerox, HP, and Konica Minolta products to identify opportunities and gain insight on what features could provide business value and inform decisions to create a competitive edge for our product.
RESEARCH + COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Personas
To design for EFI’s new target market, the Office User, I added a new persona named Ava.
I needed to keep Barrett, a Production User, in mind because EFI has existing advanced users who rely on using the driver to access to all the settings Fiery has to offer.
The previous Fiery Driver was designed only for Barrett but for EFI to earn market share in office printing, Ava is an important user to consider for this product.
EMPATHIZE
Ava
Office User
Ava wants to easily print documents. She may occasionally have some more advanced printing needs like a spiral bound presentation for an important meeting. She doesn’t know technical print vocabulary.
Barrett
Production User
Barrett is an advanced user who works in a print shop. He needs to access all the settings available to print everything from business cards to posters exactly the way his customer has requested them and as quickly as possible.
USABILITY REVIEW
Previous User Experience
Fiery Driver stood as a clone of a feature found in Fiery CommandWorkstation (CWS) - EFI’s flagship software created for advanced users. It contained hundreds of settings that are useful users who work in print shops and need to print projects like marketing materials with exact spot colors.
It was designed as a convenient way to access all the powerful settings a Fiery driven printer provides within the printer driver for easy access. There are horizontal and vertical tabs that contain all the settings. In each vertical tab, the user must scroll to see all settings available. There’s a learning curve to know where all the settings are even though they have been sorted and grouped appropriately.
The amount of options to choose from in this previous driver was overwhelming for most office users and the uptake of Fiery printers into offices was low.
IDEATE
Redesign Goal
My goal with this redesign was to create a simple, easily understandable driver that gives office users access to the settings they use most so they can have their document printed quickly and in as few clicks as possible.
Presets
For the first screen of Fiery Driver I focused on Ava’s intention - to print a document. I designed this presets screen based on data from the field to make it as convenient as possible for Ava to print with the settings she uses most frequently.
In the previous version, Ava was presented with all possible settings with unfamiliar print terms. Here, she is given a way to print with one or two clicks. It gets right to the point for office users who want to print documents quickly.
The presets can be filtered and edited. They can also be reordered so whichever preset the user prints with most will be the first option and thus require only one click.
Settings
If Ava wants to understand each Preset, she can view the settings for each one. Only the settings that are active in the preset are shown to minimize confusion but maximize understanding of the preset.
Users can explore more options by clicking More Settings to show a selection of the most used setting based on previous analytics. Again, Ava is not flooded with hundreds of settings - just the ones she will use most.
The right panel displays a preview and summary of the settings for easy reference.
Tools
The last tab at the bottom is Tools. This is where users can see applications that could be helpful for their prints. It’s a great way to display what EFI has to offer if users are not aware of these already.
“I feel like my grandmother can print using our product now.”
— EFI Product Manager