Ford Cloud Portal
Ford Cloud Portal (FCP) is an internal application that development teams throughout Ford use to automate the setup of onprem and cloud services.
Design Problem
Streamline Home Page and Navigation Structure
User Interview Insights
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Users had to click through several layers of tiles to get to the services they needed.
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Top level tile headings could be unclear for new users.
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The site navigation was confusing with many pages that were not being used.
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Needed to be modernized and align with organizational standards.
The term app packages, which relates to the grouping of services and security policies, was a very confusing and the process was to complex. This was an additional problem that we needed to overcome, eventually replacing with a simplified process.
The Process
User Interviews
The most important part of any product design process is of course interviewing the users. I used a small sample size of five users to begin, with varying degrees of experience with FCP and from multiple backgrounds. I used an affinity diagraming method to organize the responses and observations.
Behavioral Analysis
To get a better understanding of how the users navigated the product I used a combination of heatmaps and screen recordings. This makes it very obvious what is most important so that I could create a path based on actual user interactions rather than my own assumptions.
Card Sorting
After data was gathered I organized a mixed group of software engineers and designers to work on streamlining the navigation and help the user find their "happy path" more effectively. We also brainstormed options for improving the UI to better use the more modern Ford design system while creating an effecient back end.
The Solution
Simplified Header​
We removed many of the pages that were not being utilized by users, reorganized admin related pages, and made the top level menu titles more user friendly.
Exposed Subpages
In the body of the page we exposed the services so that users didn't have to click through many subpages, organized them based on usage data, and added filtering so that users could find services easier based on their need.
Updated Design System
Utilized the Ford Design System so that the application had a cleaner, more modern feel. This helps create structure, makes future designs easier, and gives users a feeling of confidence that the app is following a higher standard.