Intelligent IT Management
HPE
My Role
Designing a storage solution from 0 to launch, resulting in 6000+ enterprise customers using it.
Imagine that you are a business unit manager responsible for the day-to-day operations of a specific department or division of a company, such as sales, marketing, or customer service. You need to simplify operations and ensure data availability. Still, you don’t have the technical background or the time to use a command line interface (CLI) to monitor your servers, generate reports, analyze data, and ensure that your company’s apps are launched on time and run on a budget.
Problem Statement
Storage device sales were low due to the complexity of managing and allocating server space via the command line. Non-technical managers often need to monitor servers, generate reports, and analyze data without the time or technical expertise required by a command-line interface.
From Command Line to a Friendly User Interface
Before and After
Challenges
Designing Software for non-expert users
Designing Block Storage requires presenting to our users an interface that provides easy function recognition, user control, consistency, error prevention, low cognitive load, and flexibility. The main challenge is to offer a solution that requires minimal training for non-technical users but still meets the expectations of more advanced users, such as engineers who manage and distribute storage for companies.
Process
Learning About Users
As a designer, it’s crucial to understand the tasks that your users need to accomplish fully. Instead of creating personas, I focus on thoroughly reading all the documentation available within the company about our user’s needs, pain points, and life constraints. This includes factors like divided attention, time constraints, feeling overwhelmed by industry jargon, and the pressure to achieve company goals.
Immersing myself in the technology
As part of the design process, I often learn about different domains. Block storage involves managing physical devices. My research includes learning about servers, functionalities, key metrics, computer networking, and data protection. This means establishing conversations with subject matter experts at HPE to validate ideas.
Collaborating With Cross-functional Teams
It’s important to have open and honest conversations with product managers, developers, and software architects during the design process. These discussions help me understand their perspectives and the various technical challenges the project is facing. By doing so, we can prioritize functionalities and make trade-offs to meet deadlines without compromising the user experience.
Example of design artifacts to communicate ideas to stakeholders
Dashboard and Insights Ideation
Once I comprehensively understand the problem we are trying to solve and the technical constraints we face, I start my creative process by sketching boards, graphs, and different outcomes and interactions that can lead the user to do their jobs. For the example of the dashboard, I prioritize surfacing relevant information that can give users an overall status of their servers and applications as well as actionable items.
Considerations when designing dashboards
Sketching to generate multiple ideas in a short period of time
With the help of mockups, I present design proposals to product managers, developers, and software architects. My proposals consider the user’s needs as well as the company strategy.
Data Visualization Ideation
Dashboard Ideation
Performance Charts Ideation
Expanding Insights
System Recommendation Ideation
Besides monitoring servers, our users must allocate storage space to run their applications, databases, and websites efficiently.
The ideal solution would require little cognitive effort from the user to store and run their applications.
The system should carry the heavy lifting of recommending the best system to run a specific type of application.
AI-Assisted Volume Creation
I created a solution where most of the attributes of a volume to storage data were automated. An AI model could learn from past volume configurations and offer intelligent suggestions, while allowing human oversight where necessary.
Although initially it looked like a good idea to automate most of the tasks and offer predetermined values for performance and capacity based on what the customers use the most and predefined policies for protection, the results of the research after doing a usability test with a click-through prototype, showed that users wanted:
Second Iteration: Using Machine Learning to Assist Users in Choosing the Best Storage System
The second iteration continues to utilize AI to recommend the most suitable system based on the type of application users intend to run on the storage device. It also offers the ability to automatically address latency bottlenecks, manage excessive snapshots, and proactively compress or erase duplicate data.
Final Solution – Putting All Together
Block storage is software designed to simplify server management. It provides an easy way to visualize data, helping customers decide how and when to scale their server fleet and quickly deploy applications. Block makes it easier for businesses to store data across multiple servers.
Dashboard
Performance Charts
Final Dashboard Workflow
Once the user logs into the platform
Assigning Storage Space
Besides monitoring the servers, customers need to assign storage space to run applications.
To accomplish that goal, we designed a wizard that guided the user through the steps.
Click-through prototype with the final solution that prioritizes users’ control of every functionality and offers system recommendations.
Prototype
Color Guidelines
Challenges Faced
Navigating Ambiguity in User Needs
Without access to users, I faced ambiguity regarding user motivations and workflows. To navigate this, I conducted a deep dive into internal documentation and industry standards, synthesizing insights to clarify the user’s needs and create a foundation for design decisions that would resonate with both novice and advanced users.
Fostering Collaboration Across Teams
Managing the differing priorities and technical considerations was a constant balancing act. I facilitated design workshops among different stakeholders to open channels for dialogue, enabling us to agree on design functionalities that were feasible within technical constraints and meaningful to end users. This collaborative approach allowed us to iterate effectively, even when differing perspectives initially posed roadblocks.