Overview
Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 was a project that I joined as a contract UI Designer back in 1999. The business user console, The "Business Desk" was already built as an HTML-based application. It was functional but suffered from serious usability flaws that ultimately needed to be elminated. I personally oversaw no fewer than three iterations of the design. Eventually Commerce Server 2007 shipped with an improved, and more user- familiar design.

Commerce Server 2000
Business Desk

First Design Iterations
Continuing with the notion that the application was to be a web-based, secure experience, I began sorting out the various use-cases that were functionally present in the released version. Sketchwork like this is typical of the first stage of any re-design - the faster you can come up with concepts, the quicker you can sort out what will and will not work.

Usability Prototypes
After deciding on several directions, and with an upcoming usability lab study underway, several of the sketches were transformed into low-fidelity, HTML-based prototypes for evaluation. The lab participants were primarily Commerce Server 2000 users, familiar with the product, mixed with a few technologists who have never seen our offering. This cross-section gave us a lot of good information on how to proceed.

The design directions shown here were relatively aggressive for a web application in 2001. This called for a robust three-tier architecture to provide the appropriate level of data-caching needed for the charts and large lists shown here. I made every attempt to incorporate features that were asked by our end users - real-time monitoring, contextual help, and improved search / filter / sorting on massive list views.

Final Design
In the end, the product took a technical and strategic turn - instead of an HTML-based application, the new application was to be built using the latest version of WinForms as a dedicated client. Analysis of the usability findings supported the notion of moving towards a more familiar UI mechanism, one that Windows and Office users would be better suited to learn. The final images below are the released version of the Catalog and Marketing Managers.

One of the newest additions to the overall experience was an Orders Manager - a seperate application dedicated to the handling of large customer orders. Below are some of the initial sketches of what became the first and only rev of this feature in the Commerce Server platform to date.