INTRODUCING BLUEMIX MOBILE APP

With Bluemix Pulse mobile app, a developer who is a new Bluemix user, can deploy an existing GitHub project within the same session, from any device, and view it live. A dev team can have a productive development experience from anywhere using the tools they know and use, without having to access bluemix.net.

IBM DESIGN THINKING

At the heart of our user-centered design process is IBM Design Thinking: a framework to solve our users’ problems at the speed and scale of the modern digital enterprise. It is an iterative process from understanding the user, exploring the concept, to prototyping and evaluations. 

UNDERSTAND THE USER

In order to understand how the developers deploy and manage their apps, we conducted 6 user interviews and 4 first-time walkthroughs for deploying an app within Bluemix. We talked with 9 IBM Bluemix team members to understand their current workflows and scenarios. 

SO, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? 

The barrier of entry into Bluemix is very high. Currently with Bluemix, deploying an app can take upwards of 45 minutes. A developer can’t always manage their apps anywhere, anytime. What this video is showing is a user trying to deploy, make their app live, one of their projects using Bluemix. 

DESIGN GOALS

• When a developer is a new Bluemix user, they want to deploy an existing GitHub project within the same session, from any device, and view it live.
   
• A dev team can have a productive development experience from anywhere using the tools they know and use, without having to access bluemix.net.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

In our market research, we found that Bluemix is great in some places like power but so is AWS. Heroku is not as powerful but Heroku is very easy to deploy apps. We believe that by integrating Github into Bluemix we can make it easier even than Heroku and build more trust with people because GitHub is something that they already know and use. 

CONCEPTS

We built the first concept around the idea of natural language and being able to chat with the app by simple interactions. With the second concept, the idea is to incorporate the tools that developers know and love by allowing a user to perform all the tasks that Github does.

PROTOTYPE

CONVERGE THE CONCEPT

WIREFRAMES

After many iterations, we merged the concepts into one. Once the app is deployed, developers need a way to take the apps' pulse, to know when it’s healthy and knows when it’s not. The wireframe shows the process from signing up through Github to deploying and monitoring the app. 

HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

During the ideation process, we built 2 paper prototypes and 2 interactive prototypes and designed the look and feel by following the IBM design language. As the deliverable, we built a working prototype by connecting the Github API so the users can actually create a Bluemix account through their Github account and deploy one of their repositories and monitor the app in Bluemix Pulse. 

USER TESTING

During the ideation process, we conducted 6 user tests for 15 people. We received very good feedback about the Github login capability and the ability to monitor the app anywhere at any time. 

DEMO