SCALABILITY MONITOR

An internal tool used to allocate and monitor a scalable bank of processing machines

As the bank of shared processing machines grew, limitations with the existing monitoring tool became increasingly intolerable. It was time for a redesign to better serve the employees tasked with maintaining the system.

GALLERY

Scalability Job Queue
Scalability Machine Dashboard
Scalability Condensed Dashboard
Scalability Job Details
Scalability Workflow Diagram
Scalability Early Wireframes

DETAILS

Requirements

  • Configure coordinator machine's settings and connections
  • Monitor processing machines' allocation and activity on a dashboard
  • Monitor and manage prioritization of a list of queued jobs
  • Draw attention to failures so they can be diagnosed and resolved quickly
  • Retain all existing functionality from the existing implementation

My Involvement

  • Role : Sole designer
  • Timespan : 6 months

  • Scale : Full browser-based admin tool, with all layouts, visual styles, and iconography

Story

Having known nothing about sharing job processing among machines prior to this project, I started by interviewing the internal team that maintained the system. The existing tool was not something I could easily or safely explore independently, so I relied on the administrators for screenshots and walkthroughs, during which they would detail opportunities for improvement.

I drew up low-fidelity wireframes and a workflow diagram to ensure I understood the requirements and common use-cases sufficiently and shared these with the users and development team for feedback.

After the wireframes were approved, the final design took several iterations and conversations to gain buy-in. The high-fidelity mockups pictured an experience that, while desirable, was significantly different from what the users knew. Ultimately, the team chose to develop the majority of the design as drawn.