UI: Competitive Advantage

User-interface design can help a product compete in new market segments. Take 2Wire’s HomePortal residential gateway, which allows multiple computers to share high-speed Internet access. Until recently, such products were considered too technical for mass-market consumer adoption. The HomePortal needed easy-to-use software to succeed in the home networking market.

As the UI designer at 2Wire, I designed the HomePortal’s Web-based interface, making its functional capabilities less technical, and applying a new visual design to extend 2Wire’s brand. I also designed “broadband applications“ to add parental controls and Internet telephony to the HomePortal, making it more useful to home users and further differentiating it from competing products. SBC and other Internet service providers now offer the HomePortal as their top home networking solution, due in part to its successful UI design.