Leon Barnard is an Interaction Designer in xDesign, who is working on SOA/BI and NetBeans products. He recently moved from Los Angeles to Prague and is enjoying Czech food and not needing a car.

My job as an interaction designer is to create designs that help users accomplish their tasks more quickly and/or more easily. Sometimes this is done through surface-level changes like adding emphasis to frequently used actions, adjusting spacing and layout, or by using clearer instructions. The most successful projects, however, often involve taking a very complex task and changing its components so that achieving the desired result becomes less complex. This is much more difficult to do, yet more fun and rewarding. I was recently tasked with making the development and design of WSDL files easier. Since the task is so complex, I wanted to try to devise a better way of accomplishing it that would help novices learn the technology, as well as help experts focus on what they care about most.

WSDL ("Web Services Description Language") is a complex language used to create web services. Web services are computer programs that can be used by many different organizations or individual programmers, to perform a function they can’t perform themselves or perhaps that they don’t want to try and recreate themselves. An infinite variety of transactions and queries can be conducted quickly and efficiently without requiring any special software or network configuration. WSDL has a standard format for taking a request, processing the request, and then providing a response to the source of the request. The processing part is where a company, like Google, would provide its program’s function (called a “service”, or “web service” in this world). While the format is standard and predictable, it’s also created with the computer, not the human, in mind. So the syntax is relatively complex and unintuitive for most less-than-expert folks.

These characteristics of WSDL syntax distract users from their primary task and add confusion, especially for novices. The precise 'what', 'how', and 'where' that the user is concerned with takes up relatively little space in the code. Ideally, this content would take precedence, and the rest would go to the background or, even better, be handled "behind-the-scenes" automatically.

Our design addresses these issues. The biggest change that we made to the existing editor was to move to a more visual, connection-based presentation. In this way, users can see, even at a glance, which pieces were connected to which, allowing them to follow the stream of connections across the file. It prevents errors of mis-typing the names of objects to be connected, because creating a visual connection automatically writes the appropriate code for the user. Next, the core 'what', 'how', and 'where' elements are represented as salient visual objects that draw the user's attention, while the container objects are shown simply as dotted lines surrounding their contents. These visual representations allow users to easily see what they care about most, yet also understand how they are grouped. Finally, some workflow improvements were added to train novice WSDL users and save time for both experts and novices. These include: dragging-and-dropping from a palette, previewing valid drop locations, automatically creating objects and their containers (if necessary) when a connection is made, prompting for necessary configuration information when certain types of objects are added, and being able to collapse groups of objects that are not being worked on, among others.

In summary, the new design offers the following benefits:

• Uses a flow/connection-based model for visualization.
• The focus is on the meaningful elements (not the "container" elements).
• Follows the principle of "recognition rather than recall".
• Drag-and-drop for faster and more intuitive use.
• Multiple steps can be performed at once.
• Is more discoverable and approachable for novices.

Here are some more snapshots of the new design:

Nalini Kotamraju is a user researcher in xDesign, and a PhD in Sociology. She has a penchant for research methods and telling it exactly like it is.

Years ago, shortly after I joined the Software User Experience Group (xDesign) at Sun, my manager asked me whether I would be willing and able to conduct a usability study of a new CLI for one of our software products, Sun Cluster. I, the ever eager new employee, promptly responded yes, that I'd be thrilled to do such a study. I then withdrew to my desk, and typed "CLI" in Google to figure out what it meant.

CLI stands, of course, for command line interface, which is a way to interact with software or an operating system. Once I met with the product team and had my first look at the CLI, I understood why my manger had wanted to feel out my reaction to this kind of study. By the time I joined Sun I was a veteran at usability studies, having led many a user through a graphic interface in paper prototypes or interactive mock-ups (usually web sites of now-failed dot.coms). Testing the intuitiveness of the content and structure of a CLI, initially seemed to be simultaneously a tedious bore (only a bunch of cryptic words, no images?) and a memory challenge (learning how to string those same words together to make software do something?).

However, the usability study of this CLI turned out to be one of the favorite usability studies that I've conducted in the past decade. The fact that those words come out of my mouth still makes people who know me, even a little bit, laugh. What was so great about this study?

What made the study great wasn't just the team's ability to follow through on the findings from the usability study; thankfully, that happens regularly, though to varying degrees. Nor was it the rich feedback that we did indeed receive from the usability participants themselves. What made this usability study great, for me as the researcher, was the commitment of the product team. It's the most dedicated team with which I've ever worked on a usability study.

The software engineers on the product team were committed to hearing what actual breathing users had to say about the proposed changes to the CLI, which is rare, particularly in the context of what was a politically charged project. They hadn't made the changes to the CLI lightly, and they were passionate about making sure that what they had come up with would work for their users. In addition, they were willing to participate fully in the preparation, execution and post-analysis of the usability study, which is a rare occurrence in a field in which usability studies are often used as after-the-fact rubber stamps to mollify potential internal critics rather than to improve products.

Most of the team had never seen a usability study, so we toured the usability labs in Menlo Park, California. After a discussion of various research methods, they accepted that questions about a statistically significant population of users had no place in what we were about to do. Their commitment also involved spending painstaking hours with me, preparing me for the potential questions of live participants, by explaining how the most popular commands were executed both in the original and the proposed CLI, and, most interesting, how it connected to the underlying software structure. They not only attended the usability sessions, but mandated that other engineers, doc writers, and marketing staff on the project attend as well. My manager, who dropped by one of the usability study sessions, said he couldn't enter the observation room (of our largest lab, nonetheless) because it was chock full of observers.

And all this for a usability study for a bunch of words. Just kidding.

Loren Mack is a design architect in xDesign who creates strategic and tactical designs for the Service Oriented Architecture/Business Integration group at Sun.

This is the third entry in a multi-part series (View Part 1) | (View Part 2). In this part, Loren describes the findings of the user research that was conducted.

To solve the problems that we found, we followed classic user-centered design methodology: we didn't start with design. Instead we started by learning about our users. We visited several health care facilities that were already using the current version of the system, and we observed. We learned that health care professionals are very careful and methodical in their work. When they create a "match" between records, they’re certain it is, in fact, a match. They are serious (serious as my Granddad's gun-locker).

It turns out that most of the records that the system can’t match are easily matched by a human. Some common sense, some knowledge of the history of the hospital or facility where they work, experience with mistakes of the past — all of these things make it easier for humans, rather than for computer systems, to match certain types of duplicates.

For the handful of records that aren’t easily matched, quite a bit of legwork is required to figure out what should be done. Researching files, making telephone calls, talking to people in their facility, all of these tasks may be necessary to ultimately resolve a single case. Sometimes the resolution can take days, so our users may have a stack of "pending" matches on their desk that require their attention.

To further complicate matters, there’s an important standard with which all healthcare facilities must comply regarding confidentiality. You may have heard about this standard: HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996). Most physicians require you to sign a paper stating you’ve read about and understand it before they’ll accept you as a patient. In the context of our project, we found out that each time someone looks at anyone’s medical information that "viewing" is recorded as a transaction to ensure complete confidentiality. So nobody’s flipping through medical files willy-nilly — they’re doing it because it's important (see previous "gun-locker" note).

After learning about our users, the problem was distilled into "How can we help them match multiple records quickly and easily, while allowing them some way of reversing a match if it turns out to be a mistake?" We started the process of brainstorming and kicking around design ideas. We mapped out the health care professionals' tasks and optimized the flows so that the most frequent and critical actions took the fewest number of steps.

This work resulted in a few key design requirements to make the complex matches easier to perform and track:

• The ability to quickly see just enough information to determine if further research would be needed
• The ability to see all the information across multiple systems (and to easily highlight the differences)
• Having some way of putting a case in a "to be researched" or "pending" stack so that it could be retrieved quickly when new information became available

…and, of course…

• Some easy way to reverse a match if it turns out to be an error

This kind of meaningful design work doesn’t happen that often, so when it does it’s really cool. Designing something that makes a difference to a lot of folks, not just the technical community — it's enough to make a guy proud. Sort of reminds me why I decided to do this kind of work in the first place.

Loren Mack is a design architect in xDesign who creates strategic and tactical designs for the Service Oriented Architecture/Business Integration group at Sun.

This is the second of a multi-part series (View Part 1)

For this project, our design task involves finding a way to help health care professionals match records that the existing automated system can't.

The system is made up of two parts. The behind-the-scenes part consolidates a patient's records from various data sources to produce a single, complete, and up-to-date record of a particular patient. The system is even smart enough to see that records match even when some of the data in the records don't match.

The second part of the system is a user interface that reports records that might match, but that can’t be matched automatically. In this situation, the system needs some help from a "live operator standing by." Working with non-technical end users and providing them with awesome tools is one of the fun parts of this project.

When the system can’t resolve a conflict, the user interface alerts the health care professional and provides decision support to resolve the conflict. For example, when a baby is born, the hospital uses the father’s social security number as the baby's social security number on the birth certificate. Once common, this practice is now quite a headache for health care professionals later on, because the father and baby appear to be the same person. It's also a hard problem for the system to fix since the records of the father and baby may share the same data in many fields (like social security number and address), but the data in key fields are different (like name and birth date).

While there’s already a tool that lets a live human review these potential matches, it has many usability problems. It’s hard to tell what portions of a record don’t match. It’s hard to see information across more than one duplicate record (such as three systems all having similar, but slightly different data that could all be part of one person’s medical history). And it’s just plain slow.

These issues make it much harder for people to quickly and effectively handle records that the system can’t, and, in many cases, it takes much longer than necessary. Today, the people who do this work full-time print out huge lists of duplicate records and then spend hours reviewing the hard copies to make sure they’re matching the right information. The existing user interface could resolve these issues, but it doesn’t support their tasks well enough to be useful.

To be continued...

Loren Mack is a design architect in xDesign who creates strategic and tactical designs for the Service Oriented Architecture/Business Integration group at Sun.

I love design; especially when I get to work on something that can make a difference in the lives of everyday people. My latest project is just that: an interface design for a health care tool. It's not a nerdy tool like I normally get to work on, rather it's a tool for health care folks to use to ensure that when I (or you) go to the doctor, the doctor knows who I really am. This kind of information can prevent a blood-type mismatch or having a kidney donated, when I was really supposed to have my toenails trimmed. The cool thing is that this kind of design also can make a difference for every day folks; a group I don't usually impact directly.

The problem that we're trying to solve is keeping the records of a person's various medical treatments connected to each other. Several different systems all have a unique record of a patient that's pertinent to the system-owner's service (the doctor, pharmacy, or hospital). And even though there are really smart people putting information into these systems, well, mistakes can be made — things like hitting the wrong key, misspelling a name, transposing a SSN, that sort of thing — small mistakes that can have a large impact.

A colleague of mine had the same first, middle and last name as another girl, who went to her high school. Coincidentally, they also had the same birthday, one year apart. Unfortunately for them, they also went to the same primary care physician, which they weren't aware of until the other girl's medical charges showed up on my colleague's insurance. This kind of confusion over identity could cause a problem for one or both of them for anything from blood-type to allergies.

So, when I go to my doctor and I need an antibiotic, she should know from previous visits and my health care records that I'm allergic to penicillin. When I go to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled, their records of me would ideally be linked to my doctor's records and I won't get any substitutions for the prescription that would cause me to, say, die of anaphylactic shock.

Nalini Kotamraju is a user researcher in xDesign, and a PhD in Sociology. She has a penchant for research methods and telling it exactly like it is.

Recently, I had a conversation with Anant Kartik Mithal, who is Director of xDesign (Software Experience Group) at Sun Microsystems, Inc. xDesign provides a wide range of design services for Sun's software products including visual and motion-graphic design, interaction design, usability reviews, user research, web development and assistance with accessibility compliance.

Nalini: Why launch Design@Sun, a blog by and about Sun's Software User Experience Group (xDesign)?

Kartik: xDesign does an incredible amount of absolutely fascinating design work. As I spend time talking to all kinds of people across Sun — designers, engineers, managers — I listen to the problems they're trying to solve, and the problems are simply fascinating. I think a lot of people inside and outside of Sun would be interested in them. It’s interesting to understand what problems people are solving and how everyone solves them differently. And it’s fascinating to see how people think through the solution process. Look at the design for Solaris’ start-up, for example. I would have done it differently. It’s wonderful to see an absolutely fantastic design that’s different than what I might have done. And the same goes for the work in the Tools space, in the Web Admin space.

Nalini: What kind of problems and solutions will Design@Sun cover?

Kartik: The designers in xDesign, for example, are looking at how we can turn Solaris into a modern operating system and what that means. How can we get the Solaris start-up experience to be fun? Something like start-up poses an interesting design issue. It’s something a user has to go through; it's not something the user necessarily wants to go through. This kind of design problem that’s a little different than those users encounter when executing tasks. If I’m using JavaFX to create an animation, I’m actually getting work done. But if I'm doing start-up and install, these are wasted steps. So how can you make them interesting for users? How can you give the user something back while they're happening? If you take our individual software products, they’re all very different. What we’re trying to do is be as similar as possible across our products. So if you learn to use one of them, you can learn to use all of them. That’s something we achieved in the productivity apps a long time ago, and we’re doing it in the admin apps now.

Nalini: What will people get from Design@Sun?

Kartik: We hope to share with our readers a bunch of interesting problems that Sun is trying to solve. A lot of our stuff is open source so people can follow along as it shows up and comment if interested. Sun is all about making our customers more successful and more productive. And design is all about supporting that.

Also, one of the things that some people have lost sight of is that Sun invests a great deal in its user experience. Whether it’s the hardware or the software. It’s very important to us. It’s very important to us that administrators are able to assemble and disassemble systems as easily as possible. That system administrators are productive with Solaris. That developers are productive with NetBeans. That everyone is productive with StarOffice. We want everyone to be productive.

We were at CHI this year, as we are most years. I was a little shocked when a few people came up to me and said that they didn’t know that Sun had HCI (human-computer interaction) professionals. Very prominent people in the field of HCI work at Sun. Sun has been very active in this field, and maybe this blog can provide people with a better idea of what Sun is doing in design and user experience.