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Cloudflare • Policies
Overview
Role
Deliverables
Implement a simple and intuitive UI tool that allows customers to configure & schedule their DNS policies.
Product Designer
Research
Strategy
Research Usability test
Prototype
Admins can't configure & schedule their DNS policies without the aid of an IT expert. This complex API process excludes a vast number of customers who could benefit from the feature if it was available in the UI.
Problem
Business goals
Simplify the process in a graphical user interface (GUI) removing a significant barrier to entry, and address a critical gap in user accessibility.
Reduce learning curve involved in setting up scheduled DNS policies via an API.
Improve user accessibility, efficiency, customer satisfaction and retention.
Increase utilization which would greatly improve security operations.
Data collection
Discovery + Empathy
The first step was to understand potential customer trends & expectations for how their scheduled DNS policy should be configured. I looked at spreadsheet customer records showing actual DNS policy configurations. This helped narrow the initial scope, providing insights into some significant design considerations and constraints.
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Key insights
Customer trends
Admins use duplicate times for multiple days.
There are no overlapping time blocks.
Only one timezone is configured per policy.
When the schedules are applied for school nights, the schedule starts sunday evening
through friday afternoon.
Most of the schedules begin or end at the :00 or :30 minute mark.
Real world scheduling tools
Lightning competitive analysis
Design + stakeholder conclusions
Considerations & constraints
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Admin should be able to enable/disable a scheduled policy without deleting it.
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The UI tool should be visible and intuitive.
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Users should be able to define time intervals.
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Users should be able to view a list of pre-configured time intervals.
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Users should be able to edit a time interval.
Unmoderated
usability test
Tools used
Participant tasks
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Qualitrics
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Unmoderated usability test
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Dovetail
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Analysis & synthesis
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Follow specific tasks in order
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Configure a new DNS policy
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Customize the policy's schedule
Post-task questions
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Was anything confusing about the scheduling interface?
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Is this what you were expecting to see?
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What feature or piece of information did you expect to see but didn’t?
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What part of the process felt the most intuitive and/or the least?
Prototype testing
Key insights
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive
The UI met most participants expectation
6/7 Completed all tasks with minimal friction
6/7 Thought the UI was intuitive and familiar
7/7 Wanted templated/preset schedules
In this lightning round competitive analysis the goal was to quickly analyze the heuristics of scheduling tools of some of our competitors. The idea is to cherrypick design elements that we think could be useful in our work and to draw inspiration from recognizable real world UI experiences.
After many rigorous rounds of rapid iteration, wireframing and cross functional group critiques, it was time to get into the nitty gritty of usability testing. Unfortunately I was not able to recover visual assets of earlier wireframes.
But given the importance of this tool and it's expected wide range of use across multiple products, we did our due diligence.
Now it's time to see what our customers thought.
Keep scrolling!
Participants
7
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The unmoderated usability test consisted of step by step pre-written tasks & questions for the participants to complete without a researcher present. Questions were interspersed to capture relevant feedback, experience ratings and moments of friction. My job was to collect all observations, synthesize that information and then factor in significant changes to the design.
Benefits of unmoderated testing:
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Users work alone in their own environment without a researcher influencing them, resulting in more natural behavior.
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Results return quickly and scale to many users at a lower cost than live interviews.
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Dovetail is the best
Usability test data synthesis
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Scheduled policies UI tool
Design proposal
A policy scheduling feature that enables the Admin to schedule & configure specific times & days within the existing DNS policy builder UI. This feature would align one to one with existing API capabilities and reflect major use cases such as business hours, nighttime and custom time frames.
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