Setup Wizards for vRealize Automation

Learning an enterprise tool is always complicated at the beginning. Using the Setup Wizards, users can learn to perform basic actions to get vRealize Automation up and running.

Company

VMware, Inc.

Role

Product Designer

Year

2017

Note: VMware implemented a version of this design solution as a part of their new Guided Setup feature (with updated concepts and terminologies), starting with vRealize Automation 8.0.

Overview

In the summar of 2017, I interned with VMware as part of their Cloud Management Business team. I was responsible to design a new user on-boarding experience for the users of vRealize Automation. vRealize Automation is a tool for cloud provisioning and the automated delivery of personalized services in complex systems.

I worked on the end to end design process under the mentorship of Senior UX designers. The design process (shown below) consisted of conducting user research, iterating over and prototyping the design ideas, creating interactions, and finally testing the design with the users.

Problem space and proposed solution

Problem

The existing workflow of vRealize Automation offers no guided experience to the new users that start setting up resources within the service. In most cases when the users start configuring the service on day one, they end up seeking help outside of the product to achieve their goals. Doing so negatively affects their initial user experience.

Solution

To solve the above problem, I designed a new setup wizard experience and placed it very close to the help section of the service. Based on our user feedback, we found that the users preferred having the setup wizards very close to the existing help feature since they believe that the two features compliment each other nicely.

Problem

The existing workflow of vRealize Automation offers no guided experience to the new users that start setting up resources within the service. In most cases when the users start configuring the service on day one, they end up seeking help outside of the product to achieve their goals. Doing so negatively affects their initial user experience.

Solution

To solve the above problem, I designed a new setup wizard experience and placed it very close to the help section of the service. Based on our user feedback, we found that the users preferred having the setup wizards very close to the existing help feature since they believe that the two features compliment each other nicely.

Problem

The existing workflow of vRealize Automation offers no guided experience to the new users that start setting up resources within the service. In most cases when the users start configuring the service on day one, they end up seeking help outside of the product to achieve their goals. Doing so negatively affects their initial user experience.

Solution

To solve the above problem, I designed a new setup wizard experience and placed it very close to the help section of the service. Based on our user feedback, we found that the users preferred having the setup wizards very close to the existing help feature since they believe that the two features compliment each other nicely.

↓ Skip to final design

↓ Skip to final design

↓ Skip to final design

User research

To understand the problem better, we reached out to our some of our new users to have a chat about their experience.

What we learned from our users
Too many steps
Too many steps

Users had to go through more than 50 different steps to fully set up vRealize Automation.

Users had to go through more than 50 different steps to fully set up vRealize Automation.

Productivity
Productivity

Constant struggle to get started and to find the right guidance affects user's productivity.

Constant struggle to get started and to find the right guidance affects user's productivity.

Slow and steady approach
Slow and steady approach

Users enjoy learning new technology or service when they're taught how to use it using a step-by-step approach.

Users enjoy learning new technology or service when they're taught how to use it using a step-by-step approach.

Keeping users inside the product
Keeping users inside the product

Users appreciate documentation and help topics that are addressed directly inside the product rather than relying on external sites.

Users appreciate documentation and help topics that are addressed directly inside the product rather than relying on external sites.

To summarize
Business question
Business question

How can we create a balance between user needs and business goals by designing new setup guides

How can we create a balance between user needs and business goals by designing new setup guides

User goal
User goal

Users need to setup vRealize Automation quickly without relying on VMware’s support team, so that their organization can leverage the benefits of the service

Users need to setup vRealize Automation quickly without relying on VMware’s support team, so that their organization can leverage the benefits of the service

Business goal
Business goal

If we teach users how to set up all the services by themselves, we can save support operations cost and also increase retention rates to make profits

If we teach users how to set up all the services by themselves, we can save support operations cost and also increase retention rates to make profits

User journey map

We laid out an end-to-end journey map based on user's experience right from researching about vRealize Automation to daily provisioning.

How can we possibly solve the above problems?
Idea #1: Coach marks / tooltips

Coach marks can guide users through different parts of the UI using call outs that demand user's attention.

Users can then read the instructions provided within the callouts to perform relevant actions.

Idea #2: Chatbots

Chatbots can personalize the overall setup experience for every user by giving the entire process a more conversational feel.

Similar to learning from a friend/colleague, chatbots can create a sense of comfort by teaching users how to perform basic actions.

Idea #3: Side Panel

We will show step-by-step instructions within a side panel component, that sticks to the side of the UI. This will give a parallel view of the UI to the users to execute these steps.

Final design

For the final design, we eventually implemented a combination of coach marks and side panel to create a balanced design solution.

As soon as users land on the home page of vRealize Automation, the coach marks provide focused, contextual guidance by drawing attention to the action that launches the new setup wizard experience. This helps users engage with the setup wizards immediately.

Once users launch the setup wizards, the side panel serves as a persistent and comprehensive reference point, offering step-by-step instructions that users can consult at their own pace without feeling rushed.

The side panel provides a seamless, non-intrusive way for users to access step-by-step guidance while maintaining full visibility of the main UI. Additionally, it allows for more detailed instructions or even embedded media, such as videos or links, making it versatile and scalable for different use cases.

By offering clear, accessible guidance in parallel with the UI, the side panel strikes the right balance between user autonomy and support, creating a more intuitive and efficient onboarding experience.

Validating our design

We tested our designs with 15 users (including internal and external users) to understand what they felt about the setup guides feature. We gave them a set of tasks to perform and observed them as they navigated through those tasks while talking their thoughts out loud. This helped us collect qualitative feedback on how our users felt about the overall experience.

Our quantitative metrics were based the number of users who successfully complete all the tasks and the number of path redirects they make during the entire flow. We also asked them rate the similarity level between the UI content and instructions we provided them in the setup guides using a likert scale (with 1 being completely unrelated and 5 being a close match).

Overall, our users loved working with the new setup guides experience, especially how we could scale the feature to make it omnipresent across our entire service. We also scored a rating 4.4 on the likert scale, with most users finding it very easy to navigate and complete their tasks based on the instructions within the setup guides.

Retrospective

As mentioned above, a version of this solution was launched by VMware as part of vRealize Automation 8.0 (with updated terminologies and concepts). IT Admins can encounter numerous roadblocks while moving their IT infrastructure to cloud. Our setup wizards will allow admins to take confident actions to complete the basic setup actions and focus their efforts on more productive tasks.

On a personal level, this was my first ever design internship and I am glad I got to work on such an interesting and rewarding project. This experience made me understand that designing for B2B products comes with its own set of challenges and that it is important to always create a balance between user needs and business goals.