The story of screensavers is my story. It’s more than eye candy. 

Great design can elevate anything to great heights. My story is about turning the most trivial app anyone could imagine into the most epic success ever.

I expect that you’ve probably never thought about screensavers. Why would you? Screensavers animate a screen when you’re not even there. Could anything be more trivial? And yet, not only did people pay for my screensavers, they outsold every other software product worldwide. It sounds whacky, but it’s true.

Trivial to epic

I’ve designed every sort of product from B2B, eCommerce, and hardware integration to holistic service design, but I’m best known for leading consumer products like After Dark and Moment.  Some still know me as Mr. Screensaver because I led design on the biggest selling and most influential screensavers. This included Magic and After Dark, 86 different animations, the Inner Space screensaver game and screensavers for Microsoft and Time Warner. After Dark became the #1 selling product and my work has been featured in design museum shows around the world such as the recent show at Het Nieuwe Instituut, a design museum in the Netherlands.

Like you, I used to think that nothing could be more trivial than screensavers. Why did companies, governments and hundreds of millions of individuals pay good money for screensavers? Let me share the surprising story of my success and how screensavers became one of the greatest product design stories of all time.

• View the Sleepmode exhibit online

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Whether you fondly remember screensavers or not, let me clear up some misconceptions first.

Misconception #1 Nobody needed a screensaver

This is just wrong. Older CRT screens and even the 2015 iPhone shown below can burn in. Many current screens don’t have the issue. In the time of After Dark, everyone needed them.

Misconception #2 Screensavers were for home use

My screensavers were the #1-selling business utility in the world, and that was by intent and design. We sold more copies than Word, Mac computers and even Windows itself. Why? Because it was worth it. Businesses spent a lot of money buying hardware and wasted a lot of money replacing $300-$1000 screens when *somebody* inevitably forgot to turn them off and a static image burned in.

Data privacy and security was the next keystone product feature. When I added screen locking to screensavers, there was no PC security. If you wanted to protect sensitive data and not replace expensive screens every year, you bought my screensaver that solved these problems for you. Most businesses saw a 10-20x return on investment (ROI). The trick was making it something that users wanted to install. Fortunately, we made the animations desirably engaging and fun, while designing the app to have the slickest user experience. Home users loved it, but they didn’t pay the bills.

Misconception #3 New screensavers are better because graphics are better now

The original set of screensavers were the best, even though graphics were cruder at the time. There was a restrained design ethos at play because screensavers engaged 10-20 times a day, 365 days a year. It’s a very subtle art to design animations that can be repeated endlessly without being boring or annoying. Imagine a big open office with 100 computers, where many are inactive and running a screensaver. If half the screens were visually and audibly blaring scenes from movie trailers, it would drive everyone crazy. Nothing would get done.

Designing the product so it was acceptable in an office allowed the product to spread virally. Users got a chuckle out of flying toasters and fish swimming around, but then it was easy to zone it out and get back to work.

Misconception #4 Screensavers were toys

Screensavers were like a likable co-worker. A funny co-worker is great, as long as he has a reason to be there (ie. actually does work and doesn’t stop others from working).  When hundreds of millions bought After Dark, they were inviting me into their daily lives. The screensavers’ job was to a) protect the screen b) protect data privacy and c) give users a few moments of joy every day. I loved bringing a little magical fun into people’s day, but I didn’t overstay my welcome.

The Magic story so far..

Let’s pick up the story so far. In Part I, Ian MacDonald and I figured it all out by creating and selling the successful Magic screensaver.

• Magic’s animation saved screens from burn in
• The first password system to lock a PC
• 1000s of fan letters received that told us how to transform Magic into After Dark

For more, read The Magic of Screensavers

Go big or go to silicon valley

We were already doing huge business, but it was the tip of the iceberg. I had a clear vision:

If we can get this into stores, I’m certain it will sell MILLIONS.

We succeeded with Magic even though anyone could download and use it for free. Back then, few users went online. We needed marketing and sales to reach the masses. Since we were about to complicate Magic with 20-30 animations, a dev kit and additional features, we needed to outsource sales and marketing so we could stay awesome as CREATORS that designed and developed.

Outsourcing sales – get with the program

We selected Berkeley Systems for sales. They were in the right niche and so tiny that we assumed they would appreciate what we were handing them. They didn’t have the imagination for a cross-platform product and were a hard sell. They had a bizarre elitist attitude where they’d rather struggle selling a Mac-only product than accept that Windows owned (and still owns) 90% of the market. I like Macs, but I like winning a lot more. A big cross-platform success is 10x bigger than Mac-only.

From our success with Magic, I knew we had the goose that lays the golden eggs. We just needed to get them in the stores.

All those cool animations

Once freed from sales, we focused on making the Ultimate Screensaver Collection. We expanded the Magic 2.0 modular design with many animations and worked on the developer’s kit so that anyone could make their own. The team had a working title of “Magic After Dark”, but we shortened to just After Dark to simplify the cross-platform brand.

Everywhere I go, people tell me about their favorite screensaver animations and ask me how I came up with them. As leader, I set the design criteria and reviewed the work, but it was a team effort with many contributors. The point of 40-80+ different animations is to offer a wide range of specific visual experiences. Every user had the ability to not only choose from serious, whimsical, action-packed and meditative animations, but to customize each one. In this way, every user’s screensaver became an expression of personal style and control over their own environment.

In reviewing and tweaking every animation, I had to look at screensavers 12-18 hours a day, 7 days a week for that first release. If a screensaver could be boring or annoying, I would see it and fix it long before users ever experienced it. The key was making them a bit unpredictable, so that even I could enjoy seeing them like fans did. I pushed everyone to a higher level of excellence; bulletproof, tight, fast animation code that would work anywhere and please anyone.

The psychology of a screensaver user

With our knowledge of screensaver users gained from Magic, I designed the product around the psychology of the buyer.

1. USERS NEEDED IT

   Screensavers served two needs, saving the screen from burn in and protecting data privacy.

2. USERS WANTED IT

   Most software was something imposed on office users, not desired. To be desired by users, the screensaver had to be engaging, simple and fun to use, not just nice to look at.

3. USERS COULD JUSTIFY IT

   Locking down a PC with a password was even more pivotal than saving the screen. IT Managers and CEOs were happy to approve purchase orders for a product that protected company data. I addressed three personas: the worker, the IT administrator and the owner/decision maker. For home users, all three were one person.

Design Credo: Zero cost of ownership software

Have you ever hated a new gadget or app you had to use? Yeah, me too! Everybody hates complicated technology. 90% of the cost of ownership of technology is NOT the purchase price. It’s the aggravation and time it takes to figure out how to set up and use something.  My goal was to produce something that just worked, with no cost of ownership at all.

High maintenance people make us constantly bend over backwards to keep them happy. High maintenance software sucks for the same reason. In the 90s, you had to read 100+ page manuals and go on a training course just to use something that would break if you made the smallest mistake.

The average person felt you had to be a genius to work a computer. After Dark showed that normal people could enjoy software.

After Dark was designed to be the opposite, something that would please even those who hated computers. My idea was zero cost of ownership. You bought it, it worked, and everything was easy, fun, engaging and painless. What a concept!

Here’s the funny thing. When software is effortless to use, users are MORE inclined to tinker with settings. Almost everyone customized After Dark’s animations, just because it was fun and so damn easy.

By letter, email and in person, thousands of users have told me a) they loved my screensavers and b) it was the only software they didn’t hate.

The #1 message from fans and that they loved my screensavers because it was the only useful, yet fun thing they’d ever used on a computer. That is why competitors never got anywhere. They did more but were hard to use. It’s like people. Your partner may be good-looking, but it is the way they treat you that engenders love and opens you to appreciate their beauty. My focus on quality of experience allowed users to appreciate After Dark’s beauty.

Non-obvious screensaver problems

For most apps, it’s hard enough to do something useful, be easy to use, and be better than the competition. We also had to:

1. ASK NOTHING, BUT GIVE A LOT
   It had to require no training, reading or any understanding to fully use and enjoy.
2. BE SAFE, NEVER CRASH
   Since screensavers run 24/7, any error would eventually crash a system. If a feature wasn’t safe, I cut it.
3. BE AGILE, NEVER HOG THE CPU
   It was very tricky to design complex fast animation that never slowed the computer down.
4. SIMPLIFY
   Don’t just make something work. Elegance is not just how it looks, but how it’s built.
   

Engaging with users at COMDEX

After Dark was introduced to the world at COMDEX, the world’s largest trade show. As a sales event, we were told we weren’t needed, but I wanted authentic user feedback, so we went anyway. There wasn’t much traffic at the booth. Then a user asked a technical question and I stepped up to answer and demo a related feature. I inadvertently showed something funny and got a big laugh. More questions led to more demos and I started figuring out how to get the best reactions. The next thing I knew, I was working huge crowds.

Sharing my passion with an audience

My passion for the product was infectious. I drew overflowing crowds that wanted to buy it, write about it and distribute it. By “putting on a show”, I was doing user interviews. It was a loose improv of answering questions, demoing a related feature that got an ooh, ahh, wow, or laugh and then asked a question about their work life that segued into demoing the next feature.

An annoyed journalist came over to see what the buzz was about. He said “How can you even have a booth? Why are all these people here? A screensaver is not a real product!” Thirty minutes later, he was so impressed that he left and soon came back with a bunch of other journalists to WATCH IT ALL OVER AGAIN and see what they thought. Learning to work crowds taught me how to get better feedback, one of the most important lessons designers need.

I connected with audiences because I was interested in them, not just showing off.  Show and tell isn’t as good as listen and learn. 

Launch – we have liftoff

If After Dark had started small, it would have been easier to find and patch bugs before selling to millions of users. It didn’t work out that way. After Dark exploded upon first release, topping sales charts immediately. I was concerned. Millions of users were using our 1.0 product 24/7, literally hooked into every app on every computer. A fatal flaw would have crashed millions of computers and killed us right there.

With PCs outnumbering Macs 10:1, After Dark for Windows was the biggest selling product in the world. The cross-platform After Dark 2.0 was upgraded to be identical and dominated the charts. After Dark was featured in movies, TV shows, comic strips and as a pop culture thing everyone knew about. I saw my work literally everywhere. I couldn’t cash a cheque, visit the dentist, meet a new client or go to a bistro in Verona without seeing it doing its thing.

Competition

After Dark had strong competitors. Before it was released, I got offers from ICOM and Microsoft to head up screensavers for them based on Magic. They were much better deals, but I stayed with Berkeley because I wasn’t a capricious deal breaker. BIG MISTAKE. Berkeley were dicks once the money rolled in. ICOM created a competitor to After Dark. It did the same things, but it was always a distant second.

Every reviewer noted that they were basically the same thing for the same price, but the level of finesse and magic made After Dark the clearly superior choice. The difference was the obsessive attention to the user experience, from the out of box experience to the interface to error prevention and simplicity.  Elegant simplicity has never gone out of style.

It’s hard to kill a great product.  Magic wouldn’t die.

When After Dark was released, we pushed all Magic users to get a free upgrade to After Dark and leave Magic behind. We were so busy finessing After Dark that we rarely had time to open thousands of Magic fan mail letters that were stacking up.

The funny thing was that it didn’t work. Magic orders kept pouring in and growing. After users took the free upgrade to After Dark, many of them switched back to Magic. I felt bad that my new work failed some of my customers. They told me that After Dark was awesome, but “a bit too much” for their needs. Magic was smaller, simpler and less distracting.  Just as After Dark won over competitors by being simpler, Magic won over After Dark by being even simpler still. Not only did many users stick with Magic, but we couldn’t talk companies out of placing large Magic site license orders. We reluctantly kept selling Magic for years without upgrading it or doing a damn thing to encourage it. It was true software Magic.

Cultural influence

Over time, I moved on to other things and others made screensavers into distracting toys. The products I worked on were not. They served a purpose and made people happy. I saw my work everywhere. One outstanding experience was when Ian and I saw the movie Malice. In a particularly tense murder scene, the screen filled with After Dark’s Flying Toasters to establish a plot point. We broke out laughing at the absurdity of seeing our work 80ft across a cinema screen. You try to get away from work for a movie and boom, there it is all over the screen! Other patrons were not amused.

Lessons learned

My skill and confidence as a product designer grew a lot from designing screensavers.

1. Awesome is not a feature list. Awesome products are designed to be awesome.

Even when the base deliverable seemed trivial, great design can elevate the value to the top of the sales charts.

2. Users bond with a product when they feel in control.

I hate complexity and so does everyone else. Software that’s fun to install, use and tinker with is hard to make, but can be loved, not merely tolerated by users.

3. Simple is great. For some, even simpler is better.

The UX simplicity of After Dark made it #1. However, some users preferred the even more simple Magic. We think users want more, but every extra feature adds complexity. Cut non-essentials.

Extra: Don’t try to sell the same thing to everyone.

The initial constraints for business users produced screensavers that were awesome for everyone. After I moved on beyond screensavers, Berkeley and others created some very distracting & poorly done screensavers that weren’t separated into a HOME line. It pissed off managers who didn’t want to pay to distract the whole office & degraded the whole genre.

Where it started

How did it start?  Read Part I, the Magic of Screensavers.

Contact me if you’d like to hire me as your UX Design Lead.