One of Ning’s most popular features is the chat system. After 2+ years of a Flash-based chat client that developers had trouble improving and that didn’t work on iOS, we decided to start over and rewrite chat in Javascript and HTML.

I kicked off the process, building interactive wireframes using Axure and writing up detailed specifications. With our senior UX designer on leave, I even did much of the visual design work. I then worked with developers to build the new chat — gathering feedback from customers all along the way, including a beta launch.

What did our customers think? View the discussion.