Discovery Deep Dive:
Improving the Turbonomic Cloud Dashboard
Context:
Turbonomic is a software platform that assists enterprise companies in optimizing the performance and cost of their IT infrastructure. It achieves this primarily by providing actionable recommendations via the dashboard to optimize application resources. At a high level my design team was tasked with migrating Turbonomic’s UI onto Carbon (IBM's design system) post-acquisition, starting with the Public Cloud home dashboard.
What is Turbonomic?
My role & the team:
As the design lead for the Public Cloud product area, I closely collaborated with another design colleague and my scrum team (product Manager, UX researcher, software engineers (4) + engineering lead) for 6 weeks to drive the UX research and design discovery efforts for this dashboard migration initiative.
I was responsible for:
Moderating research calls
Facilitating workshops and collaborative sessions
Low-fidelity wireframing
Mid-fidelity mockups
Ensure that the new dashboard aligns seamlessly with both business objectives (product-led growth) and user needs, delivering enhanced value across the board to ensure optimal resource utilization while maintaining financial efficiency, and an intuitive and self-servicing interface.
Our goal:
To initiate the project, I facilitated team discussions and workshops to gain deeper insights into the current dashboard experience and to gather existing knowledge from my team and stakeholders.
From these collaborative sessions, I discovered that the purpose of the Cloud dashboard was to provide customers with insights on their application resources and cost-saving opportunities through data visualization charts (aka widgets), empowering users to optimize their Cloud infrastructure with recommended actions.
However, several stakeholders emphasized that past research and customer insights revealed issues of intuitiveness with the dashboard. Many users were uncertain about the purpose of most widgets, resulting in low or no usage.
Collaborative initiation
“As-is” audit workshop I ran with my scrum team to learn more about the Cloud dashboard
Original Cloud dashboard
Customer POV
Learning through interviews
I collaborated with my PM and UX researcher to conduct user and internal interviews with our enterprise customers (PwC, Chevron, Quest, etc), internal Turbonomic SMEs (subject matter experts), and TAMs (technical account managers).
Our goal was to gather qualitative insights into their experience with the Cloud dashboard, focusing on understanding user behavior, needs, and pain points. These interviews helped us identify areas where the dashboard lacked intuitiveness and what areas were functioning effectively.
Identifying our core user
After our user interviews, I led a persona mapping workshop for our identified primary Cloud dashboard user (Cloud Admin). This helped us understand who we were designing for. By focusing on our users' needs and experiences, we ensured our designs were tailored to meet their specific requirements, improving the overall user experience.
Data visualization problem statement breakdown + Cloud Admin persona map
With all the insights we’d gathered from our customers, team, and stakeholders, it was crucial to organize and synthesize our findings in one place. I facilitated this process by creating a dedicated canvas on Mural, which served as our central hub for the entire 6-week period. This board housed all our work and facilitated collaboration among the team.
Design Hub
Working Mural Canvas
How might we improve the Public Cloud dashboard to empower our customers to take the necessary actions to keep their Cloud infrastructure running smoothly and ensure optimal resource utilization while maintaining financial efficiency?
Prototype + Propose
After organizing our research findings and identifying key themes, I chose to explore the concept of a primary dashboard. This dashboard would focus on the widgets most used by customers for monitoring and managing their cloud resources, while also increasing visibility for custom dashboards.
My goal for these explorations was to:
Help customers quickly understand their cloud data.
Make it easy to navigate different dashboards.
Encourage users to create custom dashboards.
Feature a prominent CTA button labeled "Take Action" to distinctly emphasize the primary function of the dashboard and encourage users to take actions.
Mid-fi dashboard explorations
Exploration 1:
Primary widgets
Take Action CTA
Custom dashboard visibility (tabs)
Exploration 2:
Primary widgets
Take Action CTA
Custom dashboard visibility
(left-nav)
Exploration 3:
Primary widgets
Take Action CTA
Custom dashboard visibility (drop-down)
Discovery wrap up + feedback
I conducted a design playback session with my scrum team, SMEs, and stakeholders, where I shared my high-level dashboard explorations. The objective of this playback was to gather feedback on these explorations and validate their alignment with customer and business goals.
SMEs expressed significant interest in the primary dashboard concept, highlighting that a large majority of customers utilize the same four widgets at a high level. They also emphasized that different teams create custom dashboards to accommodate the widgets that best align with their specific needs.
After careful consideration, the team decided to move forward with exploration 1. It was considered the strongest visually and functionally, and most importantly best suited to the needs and goals of our users and the business.
Captured notes via Mural
Qualitative insights + themes
87% of our customers use the same 4 widgets on the Public Cloud home dashboard
Custom dashboards are commonly used by customers, as they offer optimal dashboards for the different teams in an IT organization
Executing actions lacks intuitiveness as they are embedded within widgets, requiring multiple clicks to access
The process for creating custom dashboards is disconnected from the home Cloud dashboard experience