Comcast
OneCloud
Role - Senior Experience Designer
I co-led workshops with stakeholders, shaped the user experience with research, user interviews, and wireframing, created the visual language for the new platform and provided documentation for developers.
Tools
Sketch, Abstract, Zeplin, Invision
Timeline
March 2019 - July 2019
The Problem
An overall lack of awareness of OneCloud and its purpose to function as governance of cloud infrastructure at Comcast
Comcast was seeking support for the redesign of the UX and UI of their OneCloud internal web application. Our team partnered and collaborated with Comcast stakeholders to provide research, design, and front end development consulting for their internal portal. As it was, engineers and financial analysts struggled to get access to OneCloud, don’t understand how to use the portal to achieve their goals, and when something goes wrong with a cloud service, they can’t find support to help troubleshoot.
The Solution
A consistent portal experience where users can achieve their goals efficiently and are supported throughout the process
We designed a platform focused on the simplification of creating an account, creating cloud service reports, education, cost reporting, and user management. Creating and implementing a consistent design system also helped with the navigation and usability of the platform.
Exploration
I co-led 2 workshops with stakeholders to learn more about their experience of OneCloud
We focused on discussing roles, supported cloud services, Comcast governance, and pain points.
The first workshop’s purpose was to better understand OneCloud’s structure, the second workshop focused more around enhancements and expectations for the redesign.
I assisted in a series of eight in-depth user interviews using a goal oriented discussion guide
We wanted to better understand how users were currently interacting with the Comcast OneCloud platform. We interviewed 3 financial analyst and 5 cloud infrastructure engineers to get insights into how the current platform was performing in their workflows.
User Testing
We started by interviewing developers and cloud managers at Comcast. They voiced their concerns and pain points around getting accounts set up, learning about cloud services, logging in, navigating, and setting up a network to fit within within Comcast's corporate requirements.
How can we create a painless and consistent portal experience so that users can achieve their goals efficiently and are supported throughout the process?
Awareness & Purpose
There is an overall lack of awareness of OneCloud and its purpose to function as governance of cloud infrastructure at Comcast.
Onboarding
After learning about OneCloud, it can be a difficult and disorienting process to get started.
Usability
The barrier to entry was high, and OneCloud is difficult to use at first, but users who invested the time do learn the platform’s value and utility
Wireframes
Designs
Onboarding
Historically, there hasn’t been a simple or clear manner in which to begin using OneCloud
Surfacing a registration/account access request link on the sign-on screen mitigated confusion on where to submit a cloud access request. Additionally, we implemented a way to identity first-time users through cookies/SSO and prioritized surfacing content that would help them get started.
Accounts
Removing “Teams” and replacing them with simpler terminology enabled engineers to assign and manage permissions more easily
Participants reacted positively to an account-first approach, and the simplification of terminology. Navigating the platform and performing tasks proved to be easier without confusing language.
Tags was an additional tool we made to facilitate the organization of accounts into groups. This put the control of organizing, managing, and accessing accounts in the users hands.
Ex. John Smith adds the tag “Blue Group” to their favorites and can now quickly access Account Alpha, Beta, and Gamma without the need to request being added to a team.
Cost Reporting
Financial Analysts can better monitor spending with the ability to create and save reports across multiple accounts
Users reacted positively to adding more than one account to a report, and downloading a csv of multiple accounts.
Saving reports across accounts was efficient and easily accessible for users. Finding those created reports later and searching for saved reports was also now available.
Tag Management
While our sidebar solved being able to more easily organize and manage accounts, there was still no way to group accounts so that you can view them all at once. To solve for this, we came up with a tag system that can be used to group accounts together. This system replaced the team-based system they were using that left users unsure of how to create, join, leave, and manage teams. The tagging system allowed them to group different teams, environments, and cost reports as they needed in order to organize and share out as needed.
Documentation
Better organization of support articles and accessibility to other useful resources improved user’s ability to troubleshoot
We organized documentation into clearly defined sections to help with discoverability. Topics were separated into concise bullets and lines of text to make content more easily digestible.
Sections for cloud services outside of OneCloud were added to support users who had to previously exit the platform to find answers to their questions. With this information contained and available within the OneCloud library, users would not need to leave to get the breadth of their cloud services questions answered.
Conclusion
The design of the platform must consider functionality and interactions that help users do their job well. Our usability tests provided valuable insight into user workflows and expectations within OneCloud. Our findings and recommendations are organized by these major features:
Account-Based Structure
Participants reacted positively to accessing, searching, and favoriting accounts freely without being restricted by the hierarchy of “Teams”
Cost Reporting
Creating, viewing, saving, and downloading multiple accounts within cost reporting was a major improvement.
Education
Participants liked having a direct link to OneCloud support Slack channels and the redesigned documentation organization allowed for quick access to information.
As a consultant, I wasn’t able to track metrics of the design’s performance, but one metric I could track is repeat business! A few months after our redesign, Comcast signed another contract for a phase two.
