PEOPLESOFT
CLOUD MANAGER
An app offered by Oracle for PeopleSoft customers to provide easy to use platform administration capabilities including provisioning, automation and monitoring for PeopleSoft application environments.
THE PROBLEM
To reduce the complexities of deployment for end users, and allow them to perform guided life cycle updates using the latest features and patches easily and reduce the turnaround time for provisioning.
The tool which the end users,for e.g. PeopleSoft administrators,were using for their day to day development tasks, testing and bug verification lacked good user experience. It took a lot of time for them to create DB (database) and to bring up the MT(middle tier). Hence provisioning an environment consumed lot of time.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
12+ months
MAKE OF THE TEAM
1 Interaction designer (myself), Product Managers and Development team working in remote location.
KEY GOAL
Provide a design solution to create and manage environments easily and seamlessly uptake new features.
MY ROLE
I was the lead Interaction designer and provided design direction for the product from scratch to completion.
To begin with, at the project kick-start meeting, I pulled out a design strategy document where after discussion with product stakeholders including the development team, I received consensus on the main UX points which laid the foundation for my design.
The design strategy document for PeopleSoft Cloud Manager (PCM) covered the following main points:
1. Business goals
2. Target users
3. General tasks
4. Technological constraints
5. Marketing/Branding goals
6. Critical Success factors/Usability Criteria
This document as shown below helped me as a designer to begin the next important step : User Research as the main user groups were now clearly defined.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
Once the user groups were clearly listed, I used following user research techniques to gather user research data :
1. User survey
2. User Interviews for each user group.
User Survey
This technique helped me cover wider number of user base and get the required first level of information for understanding the user needs in less time. I prepared a set of 5 questions for the target users about the current system and sent them out using quick survey tool. The answers I received from them gave great insights about their daily tasks, identify the pain points in the current system and the expectations of the users for a better design system which would help to complete their work in a time saving manner.
Questions are:
1. What are the most important and frequent tasks you need to perform using current tool?
2. What did you like/dislike using the current tool? Are there any input/steps you feel is not required/difficult to understand/perform?
3. What suggestions do you have for making the current tool a more useful tool for you (in your job)?
4. How much time do you spend in a week using this tool?
5. Would you like to access this tool on the phone? If yes, what are the top features (Limit to 5) you would like to have?
Survey report preview
I created the Survey report containing both qualitative and quantitative user data and noted the insights gained.
Insights Summary
User Interview
This technique helped me dig deeper to understand the user needs. I prepared a set of questions to uncover the user needs for each user group. Then we scheduled and conducted face to face user interviews for the selected User group participants.
Challenges faced:
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This was a great challenge as the target user groups were really tech heavy and as a designer before asking them the required questions I did some research and homework to understand the database related technical terms they use in order to draw clear insights and understand the drawbacks of the current system.
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This was a long process as the scheduling, recording, observations and final reports took time but the data gained was goldmine for the design initiation.
User Interview questions preview
I collated the user feedback received in all the user interviews and documented the findings with insights into a presentation for reference. This data along with the user survey report helped me to proceed with the next steps in the user centered design process.
BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS
Once the user research was complete, the user research data gained helped me to dive further into User centered design process.
User Personas, scenarios and user goals
Based on the user research data obtained, I came up with user personas, scenarios and their goals to form the user stories. The following screenshots showcase the three main user groups and their user stories used for the design.
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User Stories
User Story Maps
We had a 4 day marathon brainstorming session at Trivandrum, India where our engineering team were based. I drove the sessions to do user story mapping for each persona with the entire product team involved.
This visual exercise helped product managers and the development team define the new product work and also improved teams’ understanding of their customers/users. By visually mapping out the user stories, it helped us to tell the story of the user journey and break it into parts. This technique helped us as a team to design and build functionality that is focused on desired user outcomes, instead of solely on development output or feature specification.
Advantages/Lessons learned:
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This was the most interesting step in the design process as we discovered the need for a new persona during the process.
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Important insights from the development team added value to the user story map from technology feasibility standpoint.
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In short, this process eliminated any loopholes or missed out points in the new product as the entire team could envision the complete product workflow from each user group perspective in front of their eyes like the big picture.
User story map
Navigational Flow and Task flow
I created navigational flows and task flows for each persona based on user story map data obtained for each persona. The navigational flow and some of the task flows are shown below for example.
Navigational flow and task flows
After reviews with the product managers and the rest of the team, I started my next design step of creating low fidelity wireframes.
Wireframes
With the navigational flows and task flows clearly established, I created low fidelity wireframes using Balsamiq and came up with the presentation of the first conceptual model of the new product - PeopleSoft Cloud Manager. Following images show the low fidelity wireframes done for the new provisioning flow for self service users:
Low Fidelity Wireframes - Provisioning Flow
After multiple reviews and a couple of design iterations, the final design was signed off by senior executives. Next step was to create high fidelity wireframes using the Fluid design standards that was followed for Oracle PeopleSoft products. This was more of a visual mockup of the final product.
Once the visual mockups were ready,it was sent to the development team. Then I collaborated with the development team for its development work by providing the required design details, icons and size guidelines.
Final Product
The final product was developed and made available for usability testing. After successful usability testing, the new product was rolled out and made publicly available in Oracle cloud marketplace.
PeopleSoft Cloud Manager
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
I really enjoyed working in this design project as I got the opportunity to work on this product right from scratch to finish, being actively involved in its entire UX lifecycle.
Some of the key lessons learned in this design project:
A clearly defined design strategy
As the saying goes "a problem well-stated is half-solved", its true! The design strategy document I created during the project kickoff meeting involving the executives and engineering team really helped to get started on the project quickly and lay the design road map.
Intensive User Research
User Interviews and User survey helped me dig deeper to identify the pain points users faced in the current system and hence helped me in the long run to propose the best design solution for the new product.In short, this step laid great foundation for the design.
Engaging User Story Mapping session
This step reaped a lot of benefits in the design process as the insights gained (mentioned above in the user story mapping section) was critical. Understanding technical constraints was very important and this session helped me clear that. This activity also helped build great team relationships.