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For PubNub, the future lies in building tools that cater to the diverse needs of its users. Recognizing the challenges less technical users faced while managing their PubNub solution entities, the company embarked on a mission: to create an intuitive space where users could easily handle their operations without wrestling with complex APIs.
From the onset of Q2 till the present day, I've led the evolution of the 'operations workspace' concept. It transformed from an initial ambiguous idea to a sophisticated, functional tool. My responsibilities encompassed not just helping this product form from zero-to-one but also user research, validation, and working with it key stakeholders to ensure our objectives were met.
PubNub's diverse user base meant that there was a clear segment of less technical users struggling to manage their solution entities. Interacting with channels, memberships, and users became an overwhelming task for them due to the necessity to deal with APIs. The goal?
To streamline this process and make it accessible.
The core challenge was how to empower the less technical users to smoothly interact with their users, channels, and memberships. The goal was to design a solution where users could manage these entities without having to rely on or even understand our underlying APIs. By doing so, we aimed to reduce barriers to use and increase engagement with our platform.
The operations workspace, a dedicated environment designed to to offer a clean, interactive view of users, channels, and memberships. This wasn't just a design drawn on a whim; it was a solution born out of in-depth customer discovery calls. These calls illuminated a key insight: many users had already established workflows via the Objects API. And while each workflow was unique, several tasks, like assigning channels to users or adding custom fields to entities, were consistent across the board.
Thus, our design process pivoted around two main objectives:
1.Recognizing and accommodating these common tasks within the Operations Workspace.
2.Validating the importance and value of enabling non-technical users to complete these workflows with ease.
The current iteration of Operations Workspace met these objectives. Users could now assign channels, manage entities, and even filter specific characteristics to modify entity groups, all in a straightforward, intuitive manner. The design’s efficacy lay not just in its visual appeal, but in its power to bring non-technical users closer to the PubNub platform, all without the intimidating use of APIs or CLIs.
