Virtual Machine Networking

Shipped generally available February 2024

Lead UX Researcher

Collaborators

• Primary: Product designers, program managers, and software engineers on the virtual machine product team.

• Secondary: Researchers, designers, program managers, and software engineers across the broader virtual networking product.

My research uncovered unmet user needs on one of the highest-traffic pages in the Azure portal and informed a redesign that materially improved business and user outcomes

The Azure portal virtual machine networking page is one of the most visited management pages. It surfaces essential networking information and controls that cloud administrators rely on daily. Over several years, functionality and information had accumulated on the page, which generated signals that users were dissatisfied and encountering challenges using the page to accomplish key jobs-to-be-done.

I led generative research with cloud and network administrators to find the root causes for the dissatisfaction. Additionally, I explored which tasks bring users here, where the information architecture creates cognitive load, and which expectations were unmet. I paired critical incident technique with cognitive walkthroughs rather than interviews alone, because I needed to see where users got stuck, not just hear what they recalled as difficult. The users wanted a better experience without losing the feature depth power users relied on, which was a tightrope we had to walk while redesigning the page. Once the team had built a prototype, I ran think-aloud usability testing with a second group of administrators, including competitor users, to measure whether the redesign better supported those jobs-to-be-done.

Ultimately the shipped product resulted in increased product adoption, a step-change improvement in user satisfaction, and reduced support burden. The evaluative study also caught a discoverability regression we had introduced, which the team resolved in subsequent design iterations.