Observability streams are real-time data flows from systems that provide insights into their performance and health, helping teams monitor, detect, and fix issues as they happen.
Equinix users lack a unified approach to harness observability data, hindering insights and impeding key business objectives.
Develop a unified solution that enables Equinix users to effectively collect, manage, and analyze observability data, enhancing insights and supporting critical business objectives.
Using the insights we discovered, we gained a holistic view of the observability market, its standards, user flows, and the types of materials available for users to fully leverage observability services.
Using the collected data and stakeholders' expectations, we identified the features and tools that need to be developed to meet our goal. By incorporating customer feedback and aligning with the development team, we prioritized the essential features to be built. Also, designed and built high level rough version of the MVP’s prototype.
The goal of this study was to validate the core structure of the product, ensuring it addresses user needs while keeping costs to a minimum, as this is our first attempt at the project.
We identified a group of internal employees who aligned with our target persona. Each individual was engaged in discussions where we asked open-ended questions regarding their expectations of the observability streams services. We also shared the MVP prototype to validate both the design decisions and the language used in the content.
We validated the prototype and identified gaps in expected features. Through this process, we gained insights into user questions and developed a deeper understanding of the observability users’ expectations. The findings were applied to refine the prototype, and the updated version was presented to the team.
The challenge was that users needed to understand the potential capabilities and outcomes of a data stream before investing time and resources into creating it.
"I need more details about the data stream purpose and available features."
Enhancing the content with a visual representation of the data stream anatomy allows us to provide greater detail on the feature and set clear expectations for the user.
To validate the prototype which was built inspired by continuously collecting customer insights and aligned with the business objectives. Also, to build a list of customers who are willing to participate in user testing sessions.
A survey was embedded within the product via an in-product banner targeted to specific users. For instance, users navigating to the 'activity' tab in organization settings would see the banner. Upon survey completion, we identified key personas for targeted engagement.
More than 85% of the participants preferred the design to filter resources by type, and product over org and project, they were unhappy that they had to choose between both these approaches. Instead, they expected a combination of both approaches and chose the filter based on the context.
By restructuring the page layout, I included a comprehensive set of filters for the user. With this design, users can filter resources by product, organization, data types, and more. Additionally, the design is scalable, allowing for the filter options to expand as needed.
This experience allows users to access all their Equinix resources in one place. No matter which Equinix products they use, they can access them all in one place. Allowing them to multi select resources and inject them into one data stream. Also they can find out more about the resources befor selecting them. Like which project they are part of and what data types they can generate.
With this design, users are presented with a comprehensive list of available data types tailored to their selected resources. They can review each data type in detail prior to subscribing and access a sample JSON format for reference.
More than 100 screens have been designed, 12 prototypes have been built, and over 20 user interviews have been conducted.
The next step involves building the Equinix Observability Services prototype, which encompasses observability streams along with additional features such as logs, alerts, and more to provide a comprehensive observability solution.
