BlueMix Command Line Redesign
Client: IBM
Date: 09.29.2014 - 10.03.2014
Team: Jeffrey Gadzala, Leila Li
My Contributions:
Core Concept, Prototype
Client: IBM
Date: 09.29.2014 - 10.03.2014
Team: Jeffrey Gadzala, Leila Li
My Contributions:
Core Concept, Prototype
All 12 teams were given the challenge to work within a text-based user interface (a CLI) to improve the user experience. The specific scenario required us to tailor our design for users of IBM’s version of Cloud Foundry platform - IBM Bluemix.
time is a factor: “Don’t make me wait!”
a CLI is valued for its power, don’t make it weaker
bring personality into a usually bland experience
We identified points within the CLI experience where the user is expected to wait for an action to complete. A key point that the users wait right now, but recieve no feedback, is the upload portion of the cf-push command.
We suggest a modifying file upload experience to be more informative and enjoyable during cf push.
Once the developer types cf push into the CLI, the files within the current directory begin to upload. In addition to the standard information about the current upload, the developer is presented with a progress bar in the form of a “joke of the day” which is revealed as the file is uploaded.
ORIGINAL
MOCKUP
We believe there is value in making thousands of people lives a just little bit better.
In long form, cf push follows a rhythm of doing, waiting, doing, waiting, and doing again until the process is complete. When the system is doing – outputting lines to the command prompt – it is enjoyable to watch. You can see things getting done. However, the pauses between output become uncomfortable when it goes on for more than a few seconds. The longest pause in cf push currently is the uploading of app files, which doesn’t have any progress indicator.
We chose to implement a joke of the day because the format of a joke reinforces the positive feeling of watching a progress indicator climb from 0% to 100%. cf push also happens during the higher points of a development process, when changes have been implemented and a mental break can happen before diving back into the code. Rewarding the push by adding humor shows that IBM is rooting for the developer’s progress. Over time, a greater positive association with cf push could form, and stressed developers might even look forward to regularly pushing their code
After researching CLI loading bar styles, we came up with multiple iterations for potential loading bars based on a text joke.
In this iteration the greater-than symbol moves across the screen as loading completes. It was found to be too distracting.
The hyphens across the top and bottom change color from black to blue. This worked well, but the change was too subtle for some.
This iteration was well received. The loading percentage was found to be important to the developers.
We conducted a critical evaluation session of our iterations on four command line users, including one cloud-based developer, and three CS major students. The major feedback was:
“I like the version with percentage. And showing word by word can make sure I’m reading along it. But I didn’t understand the joke…”
- Diyue, Chinese CS PHD
“Yea the joke certainly took my attention away from having to wait for the file to upload… A joke sometime and a meme the next time will be better."
- Shivika, CS student
“It was more engaging.”
- Shankar, CS undergraduate degree
“I like the game while waiting idea. Like a lot. I think it should be more of a rush to win a small game while the progress is happening. Maybe WarioWare type games.”
- Sam, developer
Based on this feedback, we decided the version showing a joke word by word associated with percentage uploaded as our final design. We included the game and meme idea as future strategy due to the variety of upload times users may experience.