Case Studies
User Interface Design for an OAM Network Management System
Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturer
The Background
Maskery was requested to design a Java based OAM network management graphical user interface (GUI) to support a new line of high capacity optical routing equipment. Customer service representatives were concerned that the additional complexity of the new equipment would make the management of the product cumbersome and difficult using existing tools.
The Challenge
Maskery was required to develop a new OAM Network management user interface that allowed customers to perform all routine management operations in a timely and effective manner. It was necessary to create an interface which would not exceed 128 Megabytes of memory once all management elements were loaded.
The Project
Task analysis was performed to identify the high-frequency tasks and to understand the complexity of the steps involved. Iterative design was captured in the form of wire frames, and screen shots and then interactive prototypes were developed and were used as a basis for user interaction testing to help identify both the successes in the new designs as well as the weaknesses. Trade-offs needed to be managed with the development team since there were tight deadline constraints governing the delivery of this product. A guidelines website was developed to allow the new design ideasand recommendations to be communicated across a large organization quickly and effectively.
The Result
Maskery identified high priority tasks that the users would need to perform while doing OAM network management tasks. We used this knowledge to develop a user interface (GUI) design specification that was based on iterative design and usability testing. The guidelines site was seen as an extremely effective method for communicating the new design patterns to the development team.