Migration Assistant UX Case Study

Project Summary

Redesign the cluster scanning and mapping workflow for the cloud migration tool

Cloudera Migration Assistant Home Page – Image courtesy of Cloudera

Problem Statement & Solution

Before the tool reached its general availability, Migration Assistant had many design debts that had to be addressed. One of the most critical functionalities is cluster scanning and mapping, which are hard to use and not consistent with the design language of the platform. As a solution, the team built a semantically structured, optimized interface for these functionalities that gives step-by-step instructions and meaningful indicators to the users who perform these complicated tasks. The outcome simplifies mapping data into an online shopping experience.

Redesigned Scanning Options presented in a drawer panel – Image courtesy of Cloudera

Approach to the Problem

During the discovery phase I needed to map the workflow of cluster scanning and mapping. The desk research I performed brought many inspirations that have been assessed. Since it is a very complex task, the goal became to simplify it to a level that lacks minimum amount of assistance to perform. I continued researching and was looking for patterns outside of data applications. This approach guided the team to the direction where the tool eventually landed. The scanning and mapping task can be performed similarly to an online shopping task, where the users have multiple carts.

Technical Limitations

The scanning part is a very time-consuming process. The UX addressed that by allowing users to prepare for the mapping phase in advance while scanning processes are running. The entire UI needed to be assessed and aligned to Cloudera design standards, which means we needed to replace each UI component with the redesign.

Impact (ROI)

Since the release of the revamped scanning and mapping features, customers have performed tasks significantly faster than previously through reading documentation and using command-line interfaces. This improvement improves customer satisfaction and retention, as well as saving costs on Cloudera human assistance.

Collection management for sorting data – Image courtesy of Cloudera