User Interface Design

User interface design (UI) was our main focus of creating file port. There was a big gap in the FTP market and a need to secure transfers for large files. Allowing vendors and client to communicate throgh one folder so the client could not see all files available (even though they could not download). File Port is the first application that Cirv ever launched commercially. It was the first of its kind to allow people to transfer big files to other people and have them all password protected at the administrator’s discretion. One of the biggest feature was multiple upload, I know does not sound like anything special now. So in 2004 you could select multiple files and add them all to our uploader. They would all be uploaded while you could work on other things. The closest solution from Yahoo was you could select a file one by one in different form fields and then upload them together and hope it all finishes or you would have to know where it ended and start over.. Does not seem like a big deal now, but we were the first to do it and even got some recognition from a company that makes a very popular photo program.

Another first for us was that we were the first to allow multiple file uploads at one time. Remember the Yahoo interface you would have to select each file one by one they press upload. Until Macromedia blocked it you could upload as many files as you wanted to at once. Our challenge was to create an interface that many people were not used to. Cirv kept the user interface design simple, we came up with a red green system. Green for up and red for down. We put the folder viewing area in the middle. User and file management on the right in an easy to use accordion view. Progress bars were added to visually show in % where the upload was at. Before that it was the windows hourglass that went in circle if you want to painfully remember that.