Cloud Data Governance

Optimization Area

When optimizing a product flow, several benchmarks can be used for assessment. Business goal aliment and an experience's usability are two such values. Business goals assessments examine if the user experience aligns with business goals. Usability assessments examine how much friction users encounter within an experience. A usability assessment was selected because the goal was to improve clarity within a segment of an onboarding flow (the create a connection flow).

The following lists possible point of friction and areas of optimization for a portion of the onboarding flow for a cloud governance SaaS platform. The points mentioned are based on a usability assessment conducted while leveraging UX heuristics.

#1 Welcome page

User friction point

Effectively onboarding users at the beginning of a flow can reduce friction throughout the entire product. Onboarding should set expectations and provide users with a model for what is to follow as they navigate the product for the 1st time while subtly reminding them of the advertised product value. The welcome page shown here focuses on the product's purpose. The product's interface/tools are given less attention. This deprives users of a modeled path of how to use the product.

Optimization

• Mention the user's objective and provide a discrete set of steps to achieve their objective within the product.

• Inform users that theyll be asked to establish a connection and select a plugin during the setup process.

• Reduce the perceived complexity of the process by adding a visual aid to communicate the setup steps.

#2 Select plug-in [ A ]

User friction point

User error is inevitable within a product. Due to this, users should be provided tools to prevent and correct errors.

On the plugin selection screen, users are not provided with a clear way to go back in the flow and change a past choice made. By not presenting users with a clear method back in the flow, each selection in the connection setup stage seems rigid and precious.

Optimization

Provide users with a back button and incorporate it into the "Create a Workspace" progress tracking element.

#3 Select plug-in [ B ]

User friction point

Providing users with information related to a choice that is presented empowers them with the context to make the best selection for their objective.

The plugin selection screen presents a collection of plugins but doesn't provide details about each plugin. The plugins shown on Steampipe Hub (https://hub.steampipe.io/plugins) provide users with contextual info to better understand their options.

Optimization

Provide text that describes each plugin on the selection page or allow a user to select a plugin and be shown additional information similar to Steampipe Hub.

#4 Name connection

Point of friction

Providing product value to users as soon as possible is one method employed to reduce user abandonment. This can be applied to the "create a connection" section of the user flow.

Naming and associating a connection to a workspace are presented as two separate stages in the flow. This distinction may be an unnecessary separation within the flow.

Optimization

Combine the "connection naming" stage and stage that associates a connection to a workspace.