Cisco DNA Center
DNA Center allows companies to set up, monitor, and manage their enterprise networks with ease
Overview
Cisco has been the industry leader in networking hardware for several years, embedding their technology into complex systems that keeps internet networks up and running around the globe. During my time at Cisco, I worked on a product called DNA Center that works to simplify these complex workflows into intuitive task-based experiences.
Key Deliverables
Interaction Flows
Working Prototype
Visual Design
Design Thinking Workshops
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
2017 - 2018
Project
While I contributed to several different features on DNA Center, the best example is an initiative we had to simplify reporting.
“How can we create a reporting function that will fulfill a variety of users’ needs, while also providing meaningful, actionable information?”
Empathize
Usually when starting a project like this, I would try to get in touch with our users to get some generative data on their current behaviors and expectations. Unfortunately at this time, the UX team had trouble gaining direct access to our target users, and had to use Product Management as proxies. Our PMs have very specific and deep domain knowledge, and I knew that we could leverage that in order to get started. I ran a workshop with PM and engineering to level set, uncover some insights, and make sure we all had the same priorities.
Protopersonas to see how many types of users might use this feature
Needs Affinity Diagramming What do these personas use reports for? What are the key needs?
Dot Voting on features to prioritize and understand feasibility
Results
Insight
Action
Interpreting reports, especially those with lots of data, can be difficult
Some users generate reports while others will just review them
Creating reports can be time consuming and tedious
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Create a reporting function that synthesizes data in a meaningful way
Allow different types of users to interact with reports in different ways
Allow users to do other tasks while reports are being generated
Creating Structure
I wanted to figure out how reporting would actually map to features and requirements. The product management and engineering teams I was working with really appreciated this, and helped them frame their work within what we were doing on the UX side. In order to distill the learnings from the workshop into requirements, I used a mapping system that worked on the basis of: Users need to do A. In order to do A, DNAC needs to provide B.
I then realized that the reporting feature was turning into so much more than a monitoring tool. As a result, it needed to live outside of my team’s section of DNAC. I worked with our Information Architect as well as other team leads to come to an understanding of how a feature like this might integrate into other parts of the product, and get their sign off on integration moving forward.
I also created a series of quick, sketched storyboards that addressed each use case. These helped keep the team aligned, as well as helped us bring back the human element into this project. Often, enterprise products can lose that human touch, the core problems that our users struggle with. Utilizing storyboards helped us keep the people at the center of our focus.
Testing
After creating some wireframes, I had the opportunity to run the concept by a few customers. This was a huge win for the UX team as we have historically not been allowed to interact with our customers. While these studies were very informal, they still provided us with key insights relatively early in the process that allowed us to pivot to fit their needs.
(Here is an example of watching our users go through their current report generation process, and expressing their frustration at only having two options for exporting)
Results
Insight
Action
Users want to manipulate data through third party application
Users like guided flows, but wanted as few clicks as possible
Network operators want a way to compare reports
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Allow users to export reports as .csv, or port them directly into Tableau
Change our step by step wizard to one long scrolling page
Create a tagging and organization system that supports comparison
We decided to pivot, and strip down functionality in order to deliver an experience that aligned with our user's expectations. This also allowed us to create a product that was easier to engineer and deliver more quickly.
After a few more rounds of iteration, we were able to deliver a phase one of the reporting feature that met our users needs and helped them understand their networks better.