Grafana Cloud Application Observability

In 2022, our small team had the opportunity to work on creating Grafana Lab’s APM and RUM suite. Our mission was to design innovative solutions that leveraged unique capabilities to meet the needs of both seasoned DevOps and SRE teams, as well as less technical users who are increasingly adopting observability practices.

Current users reported frustration with the app’s cluttered navigation and lack of clear goals. Our analysis showed a significant drop-off rate among less technical users, with many abandoning the app after just one week.

Research and Analysis

I conducted in-depth interviews with 8 current users and observed a common pain point: difficulty navigating some of our applications to find information tailored to their monitoring goals. Our analysis revealed that less technical users preferred visual and interactive ways of exploring content.

Design solution

I employed a user-centered design approach, focusing on simplicity and discoverability. I’ve introduced a new onboarding feature that utilizes simple steps with minimal technical jargon, tailored to users’ goals and tech savvy-ness levels.

Besides creating innovative design patterns, I also contributed to the design system and had the opportunity to create illustrations that support the idea of simplicity and visual appeal.