My goal: to enhance the enterprise experience by introducing a global multi-zone management view.
About Automox
Automox simplifies the process of addressing critical vulnerabilities and keeping endpoints ready to use through automation. The company prioritizes security outcomes over alerts, utilizing cloud-native patching and endpoint management for strategic value.
With Automox, IT teams can easily manage operating systems from a single platform, improving security outcomes and operational efficiency with fewer resources.
Project Overview
Project Description
This project aims to introduce the first supporting feature for Automox's Global Zone Management, focusing on zone setup and user configuration to enhance the enterprise experience. RBAC by Group proved challenging, leading us to adopt the multi-org approach.
Problem Statement
IT administrators are responsible for managing numerous endpoints across different locations and departments were facing difficulties in efficiently organizing and managing their devices. They needed a simple and straightforward way to segment endpoints and assign user access in accordance with the structure of the IT organization.
Target User
IT Admin roles in Enterprise companies that need an easy way to segment endpoints and assign team members to the endpoint they are responsible for.
Goals
The goal of the Multi Zone Management feature was to help IT admins manage their endpoints with greater ease and flexibility.
Our target is for the multi-zone setup to achieve a customer usefulness rating of 4 or above, with 70% of new customers adopting it right away.
The key objectives were:
•Enable IT admins to organize endpoints based on location, department, or any other custom attribute.
•Provide an intuitive user interface to manage devices across different zones.
•Allow IT admins to create policies based on zones and apply them to endpoints within those zones.
•Provide visibility into endpoint status and compliance across different zones.
Approach
My Team
1 Product Manager • 1 Technical Program Manager • 1 Lead UX Designer (me) • 1 Lead UX Researcher • 1 Engineering Manager • 1 Product Marketer
Research
Collaborating with our lead UX researcher, we developed a research plan to
gain insights into the pain points and requirements of IT administrators when managing endpoints in different zones. To achieve this, we conducted interviews
with Automox customers who are responsible for managing a significant number
of endpoints across various locations and departments. Analyzing the feedback
from these interviews, we also reviewed relevant support tickets to initiate our
design exploration process.
Design Iterations
After conducting our research, we began developing various design concepts for
the Multi Zone Management feature. We created wireframes and prototypes to validate these ideas with actual users. We continuously refined our designs based
on feedback from both users and internal stakeholders. Throughout this process,
I collaborated closely with my Product Manager to brainstorm different design
options and user flows. I also facilitated several design critique sessions with
the design team to gather additional feedback on the designs.
User Testing
We conducted user testing sessions with five IT admins to validate our designs and gather feedback. We asked users to perform tasks such as creating zones, adding devices, and applying policies. We observed their behavior and gathered feedback on the usability and effectiveness of the feature.
Test Goals
1. Determine how well the conceptualized enterprise experience meets
customer needs by delivering the following ‘slice’ of the total enterprise
experience.
• Creating and managing Zones
• Assigning roles / permissions within Zones
• Executing global policy
2. Explore IT Admins perceptions, dependencies, and anticipated blockers for delivering the conceptualized enterprise experience that meets their needs.
Things we Learned
1. Contextualization: providing necessary context to confidently set up the account, and clear explanations of the differences between zone admin and global admin, ideally before customers make role-based assignments.
2. Clarity: ensuring customers have a clear understanding of what a "zone" is before they are prompted to create one.
3. Automate setup: enterprise companies prefer automation if they have multiple zones and users during set up to avoid manual labor.
4. Automate execution: policy automations need to be more customizable to enable zone admins to perform actions on all the zones they manage, vs only allow for one zone to be managed at a time (e.g., assigning users, running polices ...).
Final Design
Implementation
Once we had finalized the design, we worked with the
development team to implement the Multi Zone Management feature. We followed an agile development process with regular check-ins to ensure that the feature was being implemented
according to the design.
Launch
On October 29, 2021, Automox customers were set to receive
the highly anticipated Global Multi Zone Management feature, complete with an intuitive in-product onboarding wizard.
This wizard would guide new IT admins through the process of
setting up their zones, while allowing existing users to easily
migrate their zones and users.
Conclusion
The Global Multi Zone Management feature was a successful product design project for Automox. By conducting user research, iterating on our designs, and conducting user testing, we were able to create a feature that meets the needs of our users and helps them manage their endpoints more efficiently.
