Maximizing the value of the Pulumi Service dashboard with operational insights
Overview
In this project, I reimagine the Pulumi Service dashboard with an emphasis on data-awareness. The project aimed to surface greater insights to SaaS users about their Pulumi usage. I balanced value-add for two key user groups—the "big picture" managers and project leads needing a high-level overview of operations and the practitioners needing to streamline their daily workflows.
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Problem
User dashboards provided limited content and interaction. An investigation supported that users rarely referenced their dashboards as part of daily operations. As the SaaS landing page, the dashboard needed to communicate insightful usage data and support practitioner workflows.
Solution
I redesigned the Pulumi Service dashboard using information-rich cards with user-specific content. New "favoriting" functionality supports user workflows by forming shortcuts to key pages, and new "quick stats" provide an at-a-glance pulse check across organizations.
Result
The new Pulumi Service console is a change we are really excited to see, literally. It has better use of white space and an improved balance of information on the Dashboard at the same time and that shows a real and welcome focus on user experience. It is a genuine quality of life improvement in a portion of the product that we use daily.
Customer feedback, Summer 2022
Process
My design approach models Design Council's double diamond, emphasizing the divergent and convergent thinking of design.
Discover
Quantitative analysis
Competitive review
User interviews
Define
Insights report
Stakeholder review
Develop
Wireframes
High fidelity prototypes
Design critique
Deliver
Instrumentation
Retrospective
Identifying opportunities to improve the previous dashboard experience
The old Pulumi dashboard circa Spring 2022 with few cards containing user-specific content.
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There’s not a lot of things [on the dashboard] ... it's easy for us to understand what is happening, but maybe it could have more information.
Pulumi user interview, Spring 2022
[In the past] I knew where everything [Pulumi projects] was, but as we've grown, other engineers have started to take on some of that. And so it's no longer all in my head, but I still want to keep an eye on the big picture of our usage.
Pulumi user interview, Spring 2022
Synthesizing user research into a defined problem space
My teammates and I [top left] conducting a practice interview.
Affinity mapping a dozen user interviews to identify emergent patterns.
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Presenting my research insights at the company all-hands in Seattle, May 2022.
Iterating on a more information-rich dashboard
Early wireframe proposal for a dual-view dashboard. Stakeholders had us shift in another direction to leave space for a future work stream involving a dedicated "Insights" page.
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Building Figma components for the Pulumi dashboard.
Representing variable dashboard states in high fidelity.
Launching UX improvements to the Pulumi Service
Great impressions so far, the UI is way better—more compact and clean.
User feedback form, Summer 2022
[The new design] is way better regiment[ed] ... way easier to navigate everything.
Customer feedback session, Summer 2022
Total accumulation of favorites over time, ~10% which are discovered through the dashboard interface.
Speaking to the dashboard redesign and other changes to the Pulumi SaaS on Pulumi Office Hours.