Hussain's Design

Interaction & visual design Alert management for Esper Platform ( Case study

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Overview

At Esper, we provide an Android device and app management platform for enterprise users to manage their fleet of devices.
In order to make sure devices are up and running users need to make sure they should know when their devices are having any issues and so that they can act on an urgent basis proper alert management was built for our users.

Problem Statement

In our existing system, we had only 2 alerts types initially and has limited capacity.
Limitations of existing alert system:
  • Only one email could be set for alerts.
  • Alert created one-time cant be edited, in order to change alert condition user needed to delete the alert first and create new alert.
  • Alert created was automatically set to all the devices on the platform. which led to duplicate alerts.
  • Alert generated was sent multiple times to the user unless the alert condition was not changed which was making user email bombarded.

Customers/ Users

For your context , our users in almost every industry where they use android devices for their digital business. Be it a retail, Hospitality , e-commerce , healthcare , transportation.
They use android devices , for their daily activities be it a kiosk devices , digital signage or basic mobile devices for their employee's. Some examples of our customers are Big-basket, Uber, Care.ai, Spire health, Intelity , Ordermark and many more.

Roles & Responsibities

Comapany : Esper
Product team: Strategy
Me : Design & strategy

Scope and Constraints

For initial scope we started with basic five alert types and define the whole structure with them which we could extend to other parameters lately

Process

Identification of important alert types

We interviewed a few customers & got an understanding of the most important alert types they would prefer to have in the system. However, while listing we checked with all the possibilities which we could use later.
 
Different alert types
Parameter
Type of parameter
Content-type
Range
Alert conditions
Linked to
Importance
Battery
Primary
number
0-100
above threshold,below threshold ,= threshold
devicegroup
Must have
Internal storage
Primary
Number
device capacity
above threshold,below threshold ,= threshold
Devicegroup
nice to have
Ram storage
Primary
Number
device capacity
above threshold,below threshold ,= threshold
Devicegroup
nice to have
Power source
Primary
binary
1 / 0
connected ,disconnected
Devicegroup
No so important
Power source + Battery
secondary
Binary + Number
0-100 + 1 / 0
connected & 100 % charged Disconneted & below 100 %
Device groups
need details
Temperature battery CPU
Primary
Number
0- n
above threshold, below threshold , = threshold
devicegroups
not so imp
last seen
Primary
number
0-n
below n days
devicegroups
must have
Wifi state
Primary
Binary
1/0
connected disconnected
devicegroups
same as above
wifi switch
primary
event
switched
devicegroups
not so imp
Wifi signal strength
Primary
number
0-6
High low medium
devicegroups
2nd iteration
cellular internet
Primary
Binary
1/0
connected disconnected
devicegroups
keep it connectivity
Bluetooth state
Primary
Binary
1/0
connected disconnected
devicegroups
nice to have
Bluetooth peripheral
Primary
event
Unknown device detectednew device connected
devicegroups
must have
Apps
Primary
event
Unapproved app detected APP CRASHED App installed app uninstalledapp installation failed
device group
not here
battery current
Primary
number
series
above threshold, below threshold ,= threshold
device groups
not
Data usage
Primary
number
0-n
upload/ downloadabove thresholdbelow threshold = threshold
device group aggregate
must have
Security risk
Primary
states
High lowmediumno risk
Devicegroups
nice to have
Remote connection
primary
event
Remote connection initiated
devicegroups
nice to have
Network
Primary
Event + Time
Network disconnect + time duration
devicegroups
already covered
Geofence
Primary
binary
0/ 1
out of geofence
devicegroups
must have
device wiped
must have

Solution Ideation

As per the problem statement, we knew what are areas we needed to focus on first. So for the first iteration, we limited our scope to that only. However while ideation we thought through how we can make alert management more intuitive and easy to use.
So we came up with few ideas and directions for our design :
  • Alert type created should be custom and could be mapped to devices users whish to or even to device groups. Giving the control to the user.
  • Alerts created should be editable & can be modified any time by the user.
  • Give the user the power to set the frequency of alert and also define the interval they want to get escalations.
  • Give users the power to choose whom to send alerts and when. They should not have to enter the emails one by one but we cam up with email channel concept in which they could define different email channels as per their actual team structure . and at the time they will create alert they can map the single or multiple email channels to alert and all the respective persons will receive an alert. and at any time they can remove email from some channels if anyone does not want to receive alerts.
  • User should also have the power to pause alert instead of deleting it & creating it again later.
  • Also, we thought to keep the language more human while creating alerts, so that it should be easier for users to navigate and take actions.
 

Interaction & Visual Designs

Creating alert
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Step 1 Choose alert type ( battery)
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Step 3 Set alert channel ( battery)
 
Other alert types
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Step 2 Set alert condition ( battery)
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Step 4 Link devices / group of devcies to alerts and save ( battery)
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Network alert type
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Data consumption alert type
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Blutooth turned ON alert type
 
Alert screen View
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Devcie wiped alert type
 
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All alerts types list view
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alert generated view
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Email channel lsit view
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Inside email channel view

Outcomes & lesseons learned

We rolled out the feature in a 2-week sprint, and it was welcomed by our users. Though there were some technical glitches, that were improved over the next sprints.
Also in the first iteration, we were able to give the option of either selecting device by device or group wise. But in the coming sprints, we will be enhancing its combination of both as we saw the need by users.
Also, we are looking out what more alert types could be useful for our users and will add them too in next sprints.
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