Author: tomquick

A Management System for Video Encoders

Case Study Introduction

The following describes a product that I shaped the UX design for from inception through 16 on-premise software releases.

What is it? A management system for clusters of video encoder systems, designed for 1000s of channels.

User Info: Operators run channels and systems. They care about stability, getting clear feedback and information. Engineers refine video encoder settings. They care about precision, predictable outcomes and performance.

Why work on this? An existing legacy management product had challenges of scale, complexity, and stability.

Mission: Design a new version of the product.

Case Study 1: Redundancy Design

Context: Redundancy is about backing up systems to keep channels running.

Problem: Each channel had its own redundancy setting. But users wrangled spreadsheets to maintain them.

Process: Listened to service engineers tasked with setting up and maintaining such systems. Worked through wireframes and user stories with engineers and product managers.

Learnings: Users thought of their redundancy planning in terms of nodes (machines). The flexibility of channel-level settings was a burden.

Solution: Designed a ‘system based’ redundancy model, so that an entire node would be backed up by another.

Outcomes: Besides receiving positive feedback from customers on the subject of redundancy management, the model became a great tool for managing system upgrades.

Case Study 2: Bulk Updates

Context: Users need to make operation updates to many channels.

Problem: Users told of stopping 100s of channels with 100s of clicks in the legacy system. It was lots of effort, with lots of risk for error.

Process: Listened to service engineers and users on pain points of legacy system. Discovered that bulk operations was missing. Studied existing models from Gmail, Jira, and other large scale systems. Designed and iterated a bulk update operational flow through wireframes, user stories.

Learnings: Designing a consistent experience for various task flows was a challenge. But it was key to user happiness and operational stability.

Solution: Provided wireframes and user flows to design team. Worked through technical constraints and UX decisions. Enhanced search and sort for users to define what they would be updating.

Outcomes: Bulk operations allowed users to manage operational tasks with clarity and confidence. The feature supported other UX flows, including fixed profile management.

The Public Internet Channel – pic.tv

The Public Internet Channel is a public-purpose network of writers, producers and directors that create videos, series, blogs and tools.  Many of the sites are managed through a WordPress multisite istall managed by One Economy Corporation, and use a default base theme that I helped create.  In order to scale to leverage sites that were on the platform and others that were not, my team created a customized RSS aggregator in Drupal, and leveraged our own API to place customized lists on our WordPress-run sites, as in the main hub site at pic.tv.

The Public Internet Channel

MyFreeTaxes

MyFreeTaxes is national campaign designed to empower low and moderate working families and individuals to access free tax services online at home, at a community center, or with the help of a nonprofit partner. In preparation for the 2012 tax season, I led the charge for the One Economy web team on the migration from the hand-coded PHP site myfreetaxes.com to WordPress in order to better support multiple editors, multiple audiences, and Spanish localization. Along with leading the web team through a set of complex campaign requirements, I facilitated training and support for internal and external contributors and content managers.

MyFreeTaxes

The Make It Easy Toolbox

The Make It Easy Toolbox is a web application to manage reusable and new content aggregations, across multiple sites and platforms.  It was created to be embedded via javascript or iframe, with various iterations and options to improve on SEO benefits.  Challenges included RSS integrations, multi-site-browser compatibility, while maintaining brand integrity.  Role included product manager and technical project manager, while simultaneously updating the platform for the parent project/site the Public Internet Channel.  It has been integrated into mobile applications, used for a variety of content and comment/discussion purposes, and effectively used on dozens of sites.

The Make It Easy Toolbox

 

One Economy Corporation

One Economy was a global non-profit organization that leverages the power of technology and connects underserved people around the world to vital information that will improve their lives.  I’ve done product/project management with One Economy for over 5.5 years, and was very pleased to product manage our corporate site.  Roles included executive producer, including creating mission goals, and audience analysis for the site.  Also led the technical team, creative direction, and content architecture in creating the site.  Created with a custom WordPress theme.

One Economy Corporation

Public Internet Channel Theme – 9ine

The Public Internet Channel is a public-purpose network of writers, producers and directors that create videos, series, blogs and tools.  Many of the sites are managed through a WordPress multisite install managed by One Economy Corporation, and use a default base theme that I helped create.  The theme was designed specifically to handle the business needs of standard blogs, but also episode-oriented video shows.  One example of a show site using this theme, is 9ine, a Telly Award winning drama that chronicles nine months in the life of soon-to-be teen parents.  Roles included product manager to support business needs of the theme, and the specific sites, including the Spanish version of 9ine, found at 9ueve.

9ine

I Am Empowered Campaign Site

Through a special partnership with One Economy and the National Urban League, iamempowered.com was a campaign designed to broaden the National Urban League’s mission reach to a young audience using social media tools and integrated campaign features.  The site was created in WordPress, with complex single sign-on requirements for a variety of social media platforms.  Roles included requirements and product management, technical project manager, content lead, and partner facilitation.

I Am Empowered Campaign Site

Public Internet Channel Theme – Diary of a Single Mom

The Public Internet Channel is a public-purpose network of writers, producers and directors that create videos, series, blogs and tools.  Many of the sites are managed through a WordPress multisite install managed by One Economy Corporation, and use a default base theme that I helped create.  The theme was designed specifically to handle the business needs of standard blogs, but also episode-oriented video shows.  One example of a show site using this theme, is Diary of a Single Mom, a web based original series that chronicles the lives and challenges of three single mothers and their families trying to get ahead.  Role was product manager to support business needs of the theme and specific sites, and technical project manager.  Challenges included the custom taxonomy for ‘series’ ordering, management, etc., in the context of non-episode posts.

Diary of a Single Mom