Adobe Admin Console
- Role
- Design Lead2016–2017
- Team
- Hands-on IC lead with 4 PMs and 20+ engineers.
- Outcome
- Onboarding a business went from 4–8 weeks to 1–3 hours, and Admin Console adoption grew 200% in 2017. Business customers moved from boxed CD-ROMs to named licences, bought every cloud in one cart and assigned hundreds of seats at once.
I led design for the Adobe Admin Console: where businesses buy Adobe and manage their licences, users and payments, across Creative, Document and Experience Cloud. I set the direction and roadmap with our product managers, ran the research and testing, and designed the core flows myself. It launched in 2017.
Companies still bought Photoshop in a box, on CD-ROM, and three clouds had never shared a front door. I bet on one: a business buys, sets up, assigns and renews every Adobe product in the same place.
Journey workshop
Product, sales, support and design each held one piece of the journey, and no one at Adobe could see the whole of it. Our researchers had heard customers call the move to subscriptions “more work for me.” In April 2017 I brought those teams into one room for two days and walked every step a business takes, from buying to renewing. The wall of printed screens and sticky notes became our roadmap.
“What products help me with my business needs?”
“I’m not sure what I’m buying from Adobe.”
“Help me decide which users will get what Adobe software!”
Admin Console Overview
Weeks to hours
The guided setup I designed for every business on the Admin Console.
Context
Setting up a business account took 4–8 weeks: inviting the team, adding other admins and claiming domains, often through Adobe support. In the workshop, the old getting-started screen disappeared under sticky notes.
Decision
I designed one guided flow that does all three, with access control built in from the first step and a short guide to the products the business bought. A new admin starts from what they own, not from a blank console.
Impact of the feature I shipped
- 4–8 wk → 1–3 hr
- to set up a business account
Purchase
Every cloud in one cart
Buying for a whole team in one checkout, across Creative, Document and Experience Cloud.
Context
Adobe sold its business plans one product at a time, so a team needing Photoshop, Acrobat and Analytics checked out three times. Every contract type, Team, Enterprise and VIP, bought differently, and tax changed by country.
Decision
My first direction, in November 2016, put a cart beside the product list. By April 2017 it was its own Add Products page: what you own, what you could add, then one review with the prorated price and tax before you authorize. One cart for every cloud, and the same flow for adding seats to a product you already have.
Help
Help where admins get stuck
Support rebuilt from the ground up: answers, chat and cases in one place.
Context
The console’s help was out of date and hard for Adobe to update, and every cloud had its own way to reach support.
Decision
In January 2017 I sorted help by cloud, with chat, call, case, expert session and community under each. By March, the ways to reach a person moved to the top, the same for every cloud, and answers sat below in tabs. Chat opens beside the page, so admins keep their place.
Bulk licence purchasing
Hundreds of seats at once
Admins called support to hand out a seat. I designed one page for every product’s usage, cost and seats, and assignment that works the same for one person or two hundred.
Dark mode
The same console, for long days
Admins live in the console. I designed a dark version of every screen, on the same Spectrum components.
What it became
Photoshop in a box is history
Nine years on, the Admin Console is still where Adobe’s business customers buy, assign and renew, across Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud. Spectrum, the design system we built on before it shipped, now runs across Adobe’s products.
Customer reactions
“This software literally powers our business.”
“Adobe got this right!”
“Saving a lot of time and money.”