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Paragon NFTS for Mac

Paragon NTFS for Mac is a Mac app that allows you to write, edit, copy, move, and delete files on Microsoft NTFS drives (or more specifically, NTFS volumes) from your Mac. In 2016, it was one of the best-selling products of Paragon Software in the B2C segment.

For the project, my tasks were:

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Web research

In the first part of my research, I created persona and decided to start by analysing how this person becomes aware that NTFS for Mac can solve their problem. I identified issues with this and proposed solutions to address them and ways how to measure the results.

As a result, the company took all measures to fix the current situation with texts on the company’s website, and in the articles on the Apple community web pages, as well as on other websites.

Email research

In the second part of the research, my goal was to assess how effective the company’s post-purchase emails are. I found that they weren’t very straight forward. I proposed a new email template that highlights all the important information and removes anything unnecessary.

As a result, the marketing team redesigned these emails in accordance with my suggestions.

Installation & onboarding

In the installation and onboarding process, it was not clearly explained to the user what the product does, what value it provides, and what to do next after restarting the Mac.

The situation was made worse by the fact that after the restart, the app was installed in the system settings, making it difficult to locate.

Main view & operations

The main drawbacks here were as follows:

• Unclear status of whether the volume was mounted
• Insufficient information about the volume size and available space
• Easy ability to disable the product with no clear enabled/disabled status
• Lack of informative messages about operations

Settings & feedback

The settings had issues with proper copyright texts.

The entire process of contacting support was extremely challenging.

Activation, sign in, sign up

The activation process also had several negative aspects that hindered a smooth experience:

• An unclear procedure for entering the serial number
• The benefits of creating a Paragon Account were not evident
• The “Sign in with Facebook” button was placed in an inappropriate location

Cross-sell

An app becomes even more noticeable and is well-suited for cross-selling products if it’s a mini app that resides in the menu bar and performs one or several key actions.

Noticeability

An application is more noticeable if it is located in the Applications section rather than in System Settings.

Overall look and feel

In terms of core functionality, navigation, and architecture, the native Apple Disk Utility app seemed the most suitable to me.

Competitors research

When researching competitors, in addition to focusing on core operations, I also paid attention to what could make the application more noticeable. I also analyzed the methods competitors used to cross-sell other applications.
Here are the conclusions I reached:

Designing solution

In the new user flow, I included all the previously mentioned details to present the full picture both to myself and to all stakeholders. As a result, almost all of my decisions were accepted with minimal adjustments.

I moved the sign-up and activation process to the beginning of the installation. I created a proper onboarding experience that explains the benefits of the product and what to do next.

Installation → Activation → Sign up → Onboarding

To make the app easier to use, I redesigned it to resemble Apple Disk Utility. So, the mac users familiar with Disk Utility already know how to use NTFS for Mac. Also I introduced a dark mode.

To cross-sell the company’s products in the future, I designed a mini app for the menu bar that performs basic functions. The app was later adopted successfully.

I was asked to think about how the touch bar functionality would look for 2016 MacBooks. However, the decision was made not to pursue the development of this feature.

During all my NTFS 14 research, I was also asked to provide a brief review of the company’s website and offer recommendations on how to quickly improve its UX. Based on the results of the website research, I was tasked with creating a new adaptive landing page for NTFS for Mac 15 and improving the purchasing process on the site.

Results

All these steps (the new UX design of the app, web design and the texts that I wrote on web) significantly increased the conversion rate of the product.

Google Analytics showed that for the international versions the CR increased by 1.5X, from 5.5% to 8.5%, and for the Russian version, it increased by 2X from 3% to 6%.

The landing page itself became over 3X more convincing, i.e. every second visitor clicked the "Download" button, compared to the previous 15%.

…...And what a gorgeous app it is! The user interface is tastefully designed, with buttons for mounting, unmounting, verifying, or erasing the selected volume.

Dual-boot users also have the option to reboot into a compatible mounted Mac or Windows startup volume. There’s even a lovely color-coded space indicator like the one introduced with Mac OS X El Capitan, displaying content by Audio, Video, Apps, Images, and Other categories...

NTFS for Mac 15 (2017)

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...A no-brainer upgrade for those installing macOS 10.14 Mojave, Paragon NTFS for Mac remains the best cross-platform utility money can buy, especially now that it plays nice with Apple’s new dark mode.

NTFS for Mac 16 (2018)

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Ideas for future apps

Later on, I designed the UX/UI for several of the company's products, following the principles I established while working on NTFS for Mac.

APFS for Windows

HFS+ for Windows

ExtFS for Windows

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ExtFS for Mac

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Contacts