Threat Stack
Vulnerabilities Feature Redesign
My Role
Design Sprint
Discussion Guide
User Interviews
Usability Testing
Affinity Diagram
Ideations
Findings Report
Timeframe
Three Months
Tools
Paper
Pen
Stickies
InVision
Go-To Meeting
The Challenge
After much debate about the strategic direction of the product, Threat Stack decided to re-commit itself to the platform's fledgeling Vulnerabilities feature. A complete redesign was commissioned by company leadership. As the sole UX Researcher, this was no easy task. We now had to take a feature that was originally designed by developers, and make it user centered.
Original Vulnerabilities Design
Design Sprint
We began the Vulnerabilities initiative with a design sprint. Bringing together SMEs from Engineering, Sales Engineering, Marketing and Customer Success, we explored the current state of the feature and ways in which it could be improved, eventually settling on an initial design direction.
Key Takeaways
User Interviews & Design Validation
Now that we had learned from our internal stakeholders and produced an initial concept, we set out to conduct user interviews. The goals was to simultaneously conduct generative research, while obtaining feedback on the first iteration of the wireframes. Eight participants from six customer organizations took part in the interviews.
"I don't use Vulns much - too many false positives"
"I need to at least take notes and track my vulns"
Key Findings
Active Vulnerabilities Tab
Suppressed Vulnerabilities Tab
Detailed View Page
Other
Ideation
With key findings in hand, I spent time with the designer to create user flows and ideate solutions.
Usability Testing
After ideating and updating the design, we conducted moderated usability testing, with a new cohort of five customers.
Key Findings
Active Vulnerabilities Tab
Detailed View Page
Inactive Vulnerabilities Tab
Other
Active Vulnerabilities Tab
Detailed View Page
Inactive Vulnerabilities Tab
Release Planning
After usability testing had concluded, I collaborated with the UX Designer and the Product Manager, to decide which features were essential to a first release and which could wait. We settled on scheduling two waves, with the first wave being robust.
Final Thoughts
The Vulnerabilities redesign initiative was a great endeavor. It was amazing to see how excited our user base was with the new design. We were repeatedly told that it was going to make a big impact on their lives. Unfortunately for our users, Threat Stack leadership unexpectedly decided to stop coding and place the initiative on hold, in order to focus on its intrusion detection capabilities.
© 2016