summary
For 2 years, I led the design for Azure Data Studio, Microsoft's flagship tool for managing databases. During my time there we introduced a number of key new experiences that expanded the tools' capability and resulted in a 400% increase in active users. We also redesigned a number of existing aspects of the tool, and aligned it better to the company's design system Fluent.
problem
The existing tool had some promise and a lot of useful functionality. However, it also had a lot of opportunities for improvement, both in terms of existing experiences, as well as the potential for adding new ones. Overall, the tool had no complete vision and direction, so we had to address who our target audience was, as well as what experiences needed to be prioritized over others.
target audience
The target audience constituted of SQL database administrators and incident response engineers. Though there were also other secondary personas, such as data scientists and analysts, our focus for my time there was on fundamental experiences, so we primarily focused on the two personas described below.
sql admin sam
sql admin sam
Sam is a SQL database administrator. his goals are to minimize database downtime and do maintenance tasks like creating backups. He strives to minimize database downtime, and ensure the integrity of the overall system and data.
Incident response engineer rachel
Incident response engineer rachel
Rachel is an incident response engineer. She works on resolving database-related incidents. Her goals are to close tickets quickly and with minimal friction. As part of her work, she frequently does many repetitive tasks and has to communicate with stakeholders. She wants to automate mundane tasks, so that she can focus on more important work.
process
I started my work by conducting analysis and user research, in order to understand the problems of the existing tool. As I collected data, I was also doing frequent alignments with stakeholders, in order to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding what we could target next. I then started prototyping solutions to our problems, which included multiple iterations and feedback sessions. As the prototypes became more complete, we also conducted usability testing to make sure that our concepts are validated. Gradually, our prototypes made it through our development pipeline and into the live product.
sketches
user research
usability testing
competitor analysis
sketches
usability testing
competitor analysis
design system
Azure Data Studio was initially created as a fork of VSCode, and as such, it followed its design system. However, as our strategy was to align with other data-related tools in our ecosystem, we made a shift toward Fluent UI. This is Microsoft's design system, which most products follow. To do that, we had to modify a number of components and styles. It brought greater alignment with the other experiences in our overall portfolio.
improved homepage
As some users had trouble understanding how to find some of the key features of the tool, we redesigned the home page. The new design made the product easier for new users to get started and it also made the tool better aligned with other products in our suite.
redesigned notebooks
ADS includes Jupyter Notebooks as part of its feature set. This is a key tool that lets our personas perform their critical tasks. We redesigned our notebook from the ground up and made it much more intuitive to use. We also added an improved way to organize and search for notebooks, in order to make them better for production use. Furthermore, we pushed the boundaries of what is possible in a notebook by adding new experiences like a WYSIWYG editor, parameters, and a python package manager.
redesigned notebooks
In order to get a deeper understanding of the product and to identify problem areas, I conducted a UX audit. My analysis showed that the site's design was dated, and the interaction model was complicated and at times confusing.
extension dashboards
To make managing remote databases easier, we completely redesigned our database dashboards feature. We made it more streamlined and better organized. We also replaced the whole styling and iconography.
SQL DB projects
To help SQL database creators and maintainers, we also introduced a project feature, that helped users organize their databases. This made the tool more appropriate for production use and enabled developers to stop dealing with a bunch of separate SQL files.
summary
For 2 years, I led the design for Azure Data Studio, Microsoft's flagship tool for managing databases. During my time there we introduced a number of key new experiences that expanded the tools' capability and resulted in a 400% increase in active users. We also redesigned a number of existing aspects of the tool, and aligned it better to the company's design system Fluent.
problem
The existing tool had some promise and a lot of useful functionality. However, it also had a lot of opportunities for improvement, both in terms of existing experiences, as well as the potential for adding new ones. Overall, the tool had no complete vision and direction, so we had to address who our target audience was, as well as what experiences needed to be prioritized over others.
target audience
The target audience constituted of SQL database administrators and incident response engineers. Though there were also other secondary personas, such as data scientists and analysts, our focus for my time there was on fundamental experiences, so we primarily focused on the two personas described below.
sql admin sam
Sam is a SQL database administrator. his goals are to minimize database downtime and do maintenance tasks like creating backups. He strives to minimize database downtime, and ensure the integrity of the overall system and data.
Incident response engineer rachel
Rachel is an incident response engineer. She works on resolving database-related incidents. Her goals are to close tickets quickly and with minimal friction. As part of her work, she frequently does many repetitive tasks and has to communicate with stakeholders. She wants to automate mundane tasks, so that she can focus on more important work.
process
I started my work by conducting analysis and user research, in order to understand the problems of the existing tool. As I collected data, I was also doing frequent alignments with stakeholders, in order to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding what we could target next. I then started prototyping solutions to our problems, which included multiple iterations and feedback sessions. As the prototypes became more complete, we also conducted usability testing to make sure that our concepts are validated. Gradually, our prototypes made it through our development pipeline and into the live product.
sketches
user research
usability testing
competitor analysis
sketches
usability testing
competitor analysis
design system
Azure Data Studio was initially created as a fork of VSCode, and as such, it followed its design system. However, as our strategy was to align with other data-related tools in our ecosystem, we made a shift toward Fluent UI. This is Microsoft's design system, which most products follow. To do that, we had to modify a number of components and styles. It brought greater alignment with the other experiences in our overall portfolio.
improved homepage
As some users had trouble understanding how to find some of the key features of the tool, we redesigned the home page. The new design made the product easier for new users to get started and it also made the tool better aligned with other products in our suite.
redesigned notebooks
ADS includes Jupyter Notebooks as part of its feature set. This is a key tool that lets our personas perform their critical tasks. We redesigned our notebook from the ground up and made it much more intuitive to use. We also added an improved way to organize and search for notebooks, in order to make them better for production use. Furthermore, we pushed the boundaries of what is possible in a notebook by adding new experiences like a WYSIWYG editor, parameters, and a python package manager.
redesigned notebooks
In order to get a deeper understanding of the product and to identify problem areas, I conducted a UX audit. My analysis showed that the site's design was dated, and the interaction model was complicated and at times confusing.
extension dashboards
To make managing remote databases easier, we completely redesigned our database dashboards feature. We made it more streamlined and better organized. We also replaced the whole styling and iconography.
SQL DB projects
To help SQL database creators and maintainers, we also introduced a project feature, that helped users organize their databases. This made the tool more appropriate for production use and enabled developers to stop dealing with a bunch of separate SQL files.
