Data Center Readiness
For IBM PowerVS
Empowering enterprise IT admin with the information they need make an informed decision about which PowerVS data center to choose
User Experience Designer
Interaction design, Desktop UI
Live as of Sept 2024
Users did not have a way of easily discovering which capabilities are offered at the various PowerVS data centers.
Designed & implemented an interactive table that allows users to view and compare capabilities offered across multiple PowerVS data centers from a single view.
✅ Reduced the amount of places a user had to visit to find out necessary data center information from 6 to 1
✅ Introduced a new pattern for comparing resources
THE PROBLEM
IT admin don’t have a way of easily discovering which capabilities are offered at the various data centers prior to creating a workspace.
PowerVS is an enterprise Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering that allows enterprise IT teams to create, configure, and manage infrastructure workspaces with needing to be on-premises. PowerVS offers several data center locations in which IT teams can create their workspaces. The capabilities offered differ across locations.
No information about data center capabilities shown
No information provided to user about capabilities for the various location options
Users had to search 6+ different places to find the information they needed to pick a data center
PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Bring information about data center capabilities front-and-center for interested IT admin
- Condense information spread across 6 separate pages of documentation into 1 comprehensive view.
- Bring the information about data center capabilities to the user in a place that is easily discoverable.
- Allow users to easily compare capabilities across different data centers, so that they can choose a data center that best fits their organization’s needs.
THE SOLUTION
Bringing enterprise IT admin the information they need make an informed data center selection by introducing a data center compare table
A customizable table that allows users to select and easily compare the capabilities offered at PowerVS data centers.
Users can search + select up to 3 data centers to view and compare capabilities from a single table
Call-out to data center capabilities table embedded within workspace create flow.
A look into the iterative process and pivots along the way
Table design interations
Pivot 1
In earlier iterations, the table offered a “capability forward view”. Users could filter by a capability to see all the data centers that offer that capability. This design works well if the user’s intention is to look for a specific capability and find out which data center(s) offer it.
However, after aligning with UX research and product management, we realized that majority of users will be constrained by region/country. Users have specific regions they are restricted to choosing from and need to know what capabilities are offered in those region’s data centers.
We pivoted to a “data center first view” where users could select up to 3 data centers and compare the capabilities offered between the selected centers.
Pivot 2
Originally, this table was to appear on the About tab of the “create workspace” flow; however, after reviewing with UX research and product counterparts, we decided to move the table to the PowerVS overview page. The overview page is the first screen users see when coming to the PowerVS offering.
This decision made the data center table more discoverable.
OUTCOMES
Benefits of the data center compare table to our business and our users
✅ Reduced the amount of places a user had to visit to find out necessary data center information from 6
✅ Introduced a new pattern for comparing resources
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We are currently working to build more clarity of success metrics and performance into our workflow to understand and quantify the impact of our designs.
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