IBM PowerVC
Accelerating IBM Power Systems virtualization and cloud management
IBM® PowerVC™ is an advanced virtualization and cloud management offering. Built on OpenStack, it provides simplified virtualization management and cloud deployments for IBM AIX®, IBM i and Linux virtual machines (VMs) running on IBM Power Systems™. The offer is designed to build private cloud on the Power Systems servers and improve administrator productivity. It can further integrate with multi-cloud environments through higher-level cloud orchestrators.
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Wondering what PowerVC is and does?
Read the article I have written where I have simplified the process of virtualization with the help of metaphors and analogies so that anyone from a non-technical background will understand what PowerVC does.
Design Research Methods
Methods that have been used
Surveys, Storytelling, Social Network Mapping, Shadowing, Questionnaires, Fly-on-the-wall (Observation), Personas, In-Depth Interviews, SCAMPER, Card Sorting, and Think Aloud.
Methods that I want to explore
Modelling and Simulations, Extreme User Interviews, Video Ethnography, Wildcards.
Project roles
User Researcher
I work with a team of four designers on a daily basis. I am a part of creating the our Design Partner program, consisting of users, subject matter experts, business partners, and clients. I also work and co-ordinate with the product management and development leadership to understand and implement new functionality. I have regular research calls with the sponsored users in order to gain feedback and to understand the problems they face with the product.
User Experience Designer
I develop efficient ways to translate user requests and requests for enhancements into product features. The process of communicating this with the visual designer involved creating workflows, low-fidelity prototypes, considering the insights derived from the research and reworking on the designs.
Carbon Design System
IBM PowerVC is migrating completely to Carbon Design System as an effort to make all the products under IBM’s ‘Power Systems’ have a consistent look and feel.
Visit Carbon Design System →
Part of my role..
Customer Recruiting and Interviews.
Discussion with product owner and development team leaders and researchers to gather information about customers using the product. Identifying different sectors from which we would like to have users from e.g. Healthcare, banking, telecom industry etc. Finding potential users/companies tracking down their technical /sales representatives and getting in touch with them. Explaining them a brief of the program and the requirements.
User Testing, User Journeys and Surveys
Next step is to schedule meetings with customers including product owner and technical/sales representative. Can start with an introductory call to understand their role/company/product use/pain points etc. Showing users existing UI, design mock ups, new UI being developed. Identify a user journey from the tool that you would benefit from validating from your users.
Discussion Guides and Synthesizing Insights.
Write your interview script so that each one is consistent. Keep research one step ahead of what is being worked on. Collaborate with the designers and developers to understand what information they would like to know from users. Review your notes and group findings into themes and prioritize themes based on pervasiveness and severity of feedback
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Complexity Analysis.
IBMer's have developed a method called Complexity analysis which is based on finding and quantifying impediments that get in the way of easily learning and using a software. These impediments - such as long sequences of manual steps, confusing user interfaces and cryptic error messages are quantified by measures we call complexity metrics. These metrics provide easily understood usability comparisons between steps in a task, overall tasks, releases and products.
Measuring Learnability and Task Completion
We show the clients the final designs once we have incorporated their feedback from previous research calls and the feedback received from the development team.
They even get a chance to experience the same designs on the LIVE UI that the development team is working on, we give them control of the screen and ask them to perform certain important tasks that they do very often on PowerVC.
Beta Testing and Hosted Trials
We are starting Beta Trials where the user can install PowerVC in their test/ development environment and provide feedback. We are also giving Hosted Trials where you can review the same install during a 1 hour remote call with the research and design team. We will continue to have long-running opportunities for the users where they can provide feedback on new functions and GUI features starting now through December.
to foster better collaboration..
Design Thinking Workshops.
We conduct Design Thinking and activities like the ‘Crazy 8’ exercise with all team members on board to see what ideas come up with features that are going to be introduced for the first time. This helps us understand the needs of both the teams and enables us to come up with designs that meet the expectations of both the teams.
Research round-tables and co-designing sessions
Our team participates in bi-monthly research round-tables that take place with the entire Cognitive Power Systems Team based in Austin.
We discuss issues that are being faced by a team member that are related to conducting user research. While we design the GUI for new features, we have multiple rounds of reviews with the teams that have created the APIs, front-end team and the design team as all of them have their own requirements.
De-stressing activities during scrum meetings.
Activities like ‘Guess the gibberish’, ‘Crosswords’ that include words commonly used while communicating information regarding the product, and ‘Word search’ are often played for about 5 minutes once or twice a week during the scrum meetings. This makes the meetings more interactive and fun. It also helps reduce the stress there is (if any).