IBM Microclimate

Empowering Developers to Modernize Applications.

Microclimate was a robust application designed to streamline the writing and deployment of microservices. It catered to developers like Jane, our primary user persona, who were tasked with modernizing outdated monolithic applications by transitioning them to a microservices-based architecture. With Microclimate, Jane could effortlessly create projects in Java, Swift, Node, Python, and Go, and then deploy them seamlessly to a Kubernetes environment.

My Role as UX Designer

As the UX Designer for Microclimate, I led the user-centered design process, ensuring the product met the needs of developers like Jane. My responsibilities included:

• Research and Discovery: Conducting user interviews and contextual inquiries to deeply understand user workflows and pain points.
• Defining User Goals: Writing user stories and creating user task flows to clarify objectives and map the journey through the application.
• Design Development: Translating research insights into sketches, wireframes, and prototypes, which were regularly validated with development colleagues.
• User Validation: Collaborating with a dedicated user researcher to test prototypes with actual users and incorporate feedback into iterative design improvements.

The Design Process

Our journey began with a design thinking workshop, where we unpacked the problem space as a team. This collaborative effort involved creating key artifacts such as:

• Stakeholder Maps and Empathy Maps: To identify and understand the needs, frustrations, and goals of our target users.
• Needs Statements and Product Hills: To articulate user requirements and align the team on measurable product outcomes.

With a strong foundation of user insights and a clear understanding of the problem space, we were able to design a product that empowers developers to modernize applications with efficiency and confidence.

After some user interviews I constructed empathy maps to extract insights.

Once I had clear insights into user needs I created a simple proto-persona. (This style of persona was what was widely used at IBM at the time.)