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March 8, 2016

User Centered Design Process for the AWS Config "TimeLine"

 AWS Config UCD Process - Carlos Marin Burgos



  • Investigate

    Phase One

    Investigate

    Learn about stakeholders

    How is it done now?

    What is wanted?

    Evaluate existing designs

     

  • Ideate

    Phase Two

    Ideate

     Generate lots of ideas

     Grasp issues and potential solutions

  • Prototype

    Phase Three

    Prototype

    Produce something tangible

    Identify challenges

    Uncover subtleties

  • Evaluate

    Phase Four

    Evaluate

     Discover problems

     Assess progress

     Determine next steps

  • Phase Five

    Produce

    Build final product

    Ramp up marketing,support, and maintenance

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Investigate Close

What's AWS Config?

AWS Config is a managed service that provides you with an inventory of your AWS resources, lets you audit the history of configuration for those resources, and notifies you when the configuration of your resources changes. Learn more about AWS Config

Identify users

System administrators

Auric Goldgrant

"Do any configuration changes look abnormal or suspicious?"

System Administrator @ Goldfinger Inc
64 years old
Single

Auric is a system administrator at Goldfinger Inc, an industrial company focused on designing and delivering submarines and other kinds of boats to shipowners. Auric is responsible for data backup and security: making sure that the system is not vulnerable to external threats at the service of her majesty.

Auric has difficulty keeping track of and localizing resource changes over time when using AWS. He wishes to have a tool that discovers AWS resources that exist within his account at any point in time.

What are the requirements?

  • Discover AWS resources that exist within an account at any point in time.
  • Get a consistent view of resource configuration across different AWS resource types.
  • Determine how your resources are connected and evaluate dependencies.
  • Get details about configurations of every resource, similar to what is provided by described APIs.
  • Access full history of changes to your resources and relationships over time.
  • Visualize dependencies between different AWS resources through the published relationship model.

User Case

As a System Administrator I want to navigate in time to inventory resources that exist in my account, understand current and previous configurations for their resources and evaluate how a configuration change to one resource affects related AWS resources.

What else has AWS tried?

It was challenging to design a tool for navigating in time to see changes without breaking some UXDG patterns. The first attempt was to use only UXDG components.

Feedback from users suggested to investigate another way to allow customers to navigate through time in a more intuitive and aesthetical way.

The responses obtained from users after showing the previous mock stated that using a Date Picker control, to see changes of resources overtime, was not the correct solution. Date Pickers consist of input controls where users enter data to obtain a result. The user feels like in an Easter Egg hunting trying to see changes. Contrary, we were looking for a control that helps users to visualize a series of changes overtime without entering any input.

Some topics I investigated.

Is there already another solution? If so, does it work?

Google Analytics mobile app.

Very interesting UI and IxD from Google Analytics. Data and time are linked throught a Time Line.

Why a good candidate?

  • - Simple component like in AWS
  • - The design works on small portviews
  • - Responsiveness

Ideate Close

Immerse yourself in the world for which you’re designing

Learn about the product

Flowchart
The purpose of a flow chart is to provide people with a common language or reference point when dealing with a project or process.

Due to the complexity of the system I was designing for, creating a flowchart helped me represent the logic sequence of the user flow from the starting point to acomplishing a task.

Generate ideas constantly

Sketch your vague ideas to think through them more clearly

How to inspire creativity?

Explain your ideas to others regularly.

But make sure you don't get stifled by it.
  • - Feedback from other designers can inspire new ideas and solutions.
  • - Take things from one domain and try them in another.
  • - Talk with other creative people.
  • - Leave your comfort zone.
  • - Be passionate about the topic.
Take risks! (A timeline?)
  • it is early in the design process, it won't hurt.
Prototype Close
Sketches are about exploring ideas
Prototypes are about testing ideas

Task Wireframes

 I use this type of artifact constantly during the early phase of prototyping becasue it helps to present the flow and interactions of the design without spending time developing an interactive prototype. Each task is explained so stakeholders can review and comment on the design. After the wireframe is approved then I start working on a high-fi protoype where developers can visualize and interact with the design.


Prototype

For the TimeLine prototype I decided to use Axure RP to show the design and interaction of the idea. One of the main reasons why I decided to use Axure to develop the prototype was the limit of time that I had to transform the idea into a playable artifact.

Story of a TimeLine. See the different iterations based on user feedback!

One problem that I had to face as a result of using Axure for developing the prototype consisted of the animation limitations of the tool. It was complicated to match the effect that we were looking for when navigating through pages using the direction controls. However, with a little research and help from other peers I was able to represent with accuracy the animation using Axure RP.

As a result, Axure RP is a very powerful tool for prototyping. Sometimes some investigation is required to find solutions and examples for your design requirements but in the end Axure RP is a very reliable tool.

Visit AWS Config to see the current design of the TimeLine.

Evaluate Close

Empirical (Usability testing)

Study conducted on October 2014

Goals of study

We tested the new Starling timeline UI, looking for usability problems. We also talked to participants about what they would use a tool like Starling for, looking for what kind of functionality is needed to solve the users’ real problems.

Participants

We had 7 participants, where 4 were already recruited as beta users of Starling and the remaining 3 were from our usability panel. 5 out of 7 users managed large AWS installations, while the remaining two had less than 10 instances.

What went well?

All participants liked having a visual timeline to navigate the data
All participants navigated the timeline well
Starling was thought particularly useful for reverse lookups, such as seeing which instances were associated with which security group or autoscaling group

Main issues

Participants asked for name tags and other data to help them identify resources in lists that currently only show ID, such as the lookup results list.
2 users were confused about how to read time line changes.
3 users wanted to do see all changes between two points in time for a resource, without having to click on each change point.
Resource change detail is missing information about who made the change
2 users asked for support for scenarios where conKiguration change happens as a result of failures rather than deliberate action.
1 user wanted to look for a problem by looking for changes across a set of resources, without having to go look at one resource at a time.

AWS Usability Report


Analytic (Design judgment)

UX Critiques
Wireframe Sign-off
Fit and Finish review
Produce Close

Design Production

Steps you take once you have a finalized design solution that you want to see implemented.
Can include: Design specs, wireframes, style guides all the way to implementation, engineering, bug testing, user documentation, etc.

Style guide used to show developers the design aspects of the TimeLine.

Redlines document with the standards and the details of templating the console.


What's next?

The UCD Process is circular.
New features and improvements start the process again.