LogMeIn started with a remote access product in the early 2000’s, and quickly began to build and acquire other products focused on technology that simplifies how people interact with each other and the world around them. Today, their impressive portfolio of companies includes GoToMeeting, LastPass, and Grasshopper. In the early days, our products won markets with the technical capabilities and design wasn’t a major factor. We’ve also done a lot of work in terms of getting the customer experience right.” – Tim O’Brien, Director of Product Design, LogMeIn As we’ve scaled, the design team has had to break a lot of older patterns to help the entire organization see the value design brings to the table. ![]() I sat down with O’Brien to learn how design has been key to remaining competitive in saturated markets, how they successfully manage design for a multitude of products, and more. LogMeIn began as the RemotelyAnywhere app (with a name change in 2006) and was one of the first providers of remote access for Information Technology (IT) professionals. The product was an industry game-changer. Previously, IT professionals would have to drive several hours to a client’s location and sit down at their server to make any changes however, once LogMeIn entered the scene, those same people could suddenly fix issues on their clients’ servers from the comfort of their own home-or even working from the beach. LogMeIn also introduced a freemium model to the market long before it was a common SaaS pricing tactic. “Translating how design solves customer problems into something the C-Suite understands is a key component of elevating design within an organization.”īetween the pricing and innovative solution, LogMeIn’s IT users were willing to overlook any design shortcomings because of the product’s technical capabilities however, as the markets became more saturated, it was no longer enough for LogMeIn to have a freemium offer or products with superior technical capabilities. Related: 4 reasons to invest in UX design “We had to invest in product design and experience to remain competitive,” explains O’Brien. O’Brien started with LogMeIn in 2014 as an Innovation Catalyst in the company’s Innovation Lab. ![]() During his career with the company, he has headed product design for every product in the company’s portfolio. The factors described above created a situation in which the company’s internal design competency was low and design catch-up was needed within the organization as a whole. Initially, design within the company followed a more classic SaaS playbook: User interface (UI) designers were embedded in developer Scrum teams and created assets for the developers who needed them. They also hired user experience (UX) researchers to join the design team: “We had to hire a different type of designer who was more in charge of influencing the organization’s design thinking competency.” The first step to reorganizing design was to break those patterns of classic SaaS design thinking, says O’Brien. “Great UX researchers brought new capabilities to the design team by doing customer visits, managing co-design sessions, and running user surveys.
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