The Story Behind Courier

Back in early 2009, we had a problem: there's no one great app that takes the hassle of getting "your stuff" online. Uploading files via the relevant service's website is generally a bad user experience. The browser wasn't entirely made for uploading - and some sites really show this, by requiring users to either use a Java or AIR-based uploader. Even then, the steps to upload can be rather convoluted - and if you're uploading to multiple places, then you'd better like re-entering details about your files a few times. This is what we set out to solve with Courier.

After some initial sketches for the app's UI, flow and feature set we had a good sense of where we felt the app should go. A few weeks into development, things were taking shape, we were all set on calling the app "Dispatch", the UI had a steam-punk factory-esque look and feel, and the industrial look of the app would be complemented by degrading the app icon and UI over time. The more you used the app, the older it would look.

Despite our initial ideas and designs of what the app should look like, and how it worked, we continued to iterate on each aspect. A few weeks later we started to move towards a more futuristic-looking UI with black window chrome and glossy white interface elements. We even had a set of sliding doors that opened when the user dropped files onto them.

For the next 8 months, we stuck with the black UI in one form or another. However, over time it became quite apparent that the darker UI had some usability issues. It felt very heavy and intimidating, and unless the user was in a darkened room a fair amount of detail would get lost thanks to the reflective displays we're nearly all using these days.

The UI wasn't the only part of the app we weren't happy with. The name wasn't quite right, we had yet to come up with an icon that we really loved - and if that wasn't enough, we had a serious case of feature creep. This wasn't a great situation to be in - we were already well over our initial 6-month development target - there was really only one thing to do at this point, head back to the drawing board.

After a little thought, we eventually settled on a new name: Courier. It seemed like a perfect fit, projecting the idea of delivering things quickly - though far less industrial in tone than "Dispatch". In hindsight Courier is such an obvious name, but only through iterating on our idea did we actually come up with it. With the name all sorted, things really started to come together. We re-visited the look and feel of the app (again!) to better fit the name, and eventually moved back to using the standard window chrome alongside natural elements in the UI (paper, wood, envelopes etc.).

After almost a year's development the app was finally starting to come together - and the app icon was finally looking the part too. We'd been through a number of iterations and ideas, and whilst this also wasn't intentional we finally had an icon that was soft and friendly instead of the cold and futuristic original vision.

With all the major pieces finally in place, we were simply left to tweak and polish the app until everything worked just nicely. We spent a considerable amount of time working on the finish of the app - we didn't want views to just "appear", everything had to be smooth and interwoven. The flip of the envelope when dragging in files, the jump-out of the envelope's contents so you can edit the metadata - they're all things that we revisited time and time again to ensure they look and feel just right.

It may have taken us a little longer than we'd hoped to launch Courier, but we're proud of the time, energy, care and attention to detail we've put into Courier (as with all our apps). We hope you love it as much as we do - and if you're not yet had a chance to try it, you can grab a copy on the Mac App Store for just $9.99.