Bulk Rename Utility Redesign — a UX Case study

Aneel Kaushik
Nov 4 · 4 min read

Note: Official Bulk Rename Utility team does not do this, This is just a concept I Myself made up as a learning experience.

CURRENT APPLICATION

Brief: Bulk Rename Utility is a free file renaming software for Windows. It allows a user to easily rename files and entire folders based upon extremely flexible criteria.

UNDERSTANDING BRU

In the process of understanding how the software works and its features, I have borrowed help from google and youtube in finding the right resources to help me gain knowledge of the tool.

Few Sources:

PROBLEM

The application is capable of getting the output needed for the user but has a very challenging user interface. As such, users find it difficult to understand and use the interface.

  1. Coverage (Users are unhappy about something they see)
  2. UI could be improved and made more user-centered rather than task-centered

GOAL

The application is capable of getting the output needed for the user but has a very challenging user interface. As such, users find it difficult to understand and use the interface.

PAIN POINTS

Many users on the Bulk Rename Utility forum mentioned various aspects of the needed improvements. To leverage their knowledge, I decided to conduct a series of internal user studies. My goal was to understand what the biggest pain points in the user experience were, based on what we’d heard from customers.

  1. The users end in a confused state looking at the kind of features the tool has once it loads on to the screen.
  2. The users are forced to view all the actions/features and its parameters.
  3. The users need a better understanding of what he/she is doing and also select the features he/she wishes to make use of.
  4. Most importantly the user needs an application to be usable with ease and understanding. The existing tool isn’t a simplified version.

SOLUTION STRATEGY

The next steps were to redesign the application, which happened over the next few days through lots of brainstorming.

The process of finding the right solution for the problems defined, I felt the need for giving the user a simplified version of this software. Where the user finds it usable in addressing his needs, understand the preferences available and its parameters.

INITIAL IDEATION

At the initial ideation stage, I have worked on scribbling and wireframing a few solutions that would match the requirement.

Sketch at the time of ideation

VISUAL MOCKUPS

This is the initial view of the application before the targeted set of folders/files are selected.

Empty state of Application

This is the view of the application once the targeted set of files is selected inside a folder

On clicking Go to Preferences button the preferences pop out from the right side of the screen with the list of preferences a user can make use of to rename the files.

Start Renaming button is visible only applying at least one parameter or an attribute inside a preference.

DESIGN DECISIONS

The visuals of the Application was crafted keeping in mind the hierarchy of events a user performs while renaming his/her files/folders.

The Hierarchy was defined as:

  1. Select the folder/files
  2. Select whether he needs a copy/move these files to another folder
  3. The selection of files has access to the tree of drives and folders on his computer.
  4. There could be many variants of files inside a folder selected and for which he/ she has access to filter based on the file type.
  5. And then comes the need for preferences or types of ways that he wants to make use of to change the file names.

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