OmniPage Pro 6.0
Previous Home Next
Human Interface Design
Human Interface Process
Product Management
NetObjects Templates
NetObjects Styles
OmniPage Pro 6
Apple QuickDraw GX
Graphic Design
Publications and Teaching
Resume

Background

After working in Apple OS product marketing I was anxious to single-handedly take a product from definition to launch. OmniPage Pro from Caere was the first optical character recognition (OCR) application that ran on desktop computers. When I accepted the OmniPage Product Manager position in 1995, version 6.0 for the Mac was approximately 18 months late. I saw an opportunity to kick-start a moribund development effort and ship a product in just a few months.

The job

I immediately froze the product definition, eliminating the moving target engineering had been attempting to hit. Drawing on my Apple experience I worked with Caere PR, Marcom, and Sales to develop press and analyst tours, packaging and Web presence, and direct mail and POP campaigns. The direct mail campaign alone generated $1.5 million in upgrade revenue.

 

 
OmniPage Pro 6.0 package OmniPage Pro 6.0 upgrade


OmniPage Pro retail and upgrade packaging

OmniPage Pro toolbar
OmniPage Pro icon


With engineering’s agreement, I unfroze the product definition at the last minute to add three key features. I wanted to refresh the look of the application (which had been ported from the previous Windows version). Second, Apple had introduced an interactive help system I wanted to adopt. Third, the Internet was just taking off in 1995 and I wanted OmniPage Pro to generate properly formatted HTML versions of scanned pages.

All three features were frequently mentioned in subsequent product reviews.