Server Installation Wizard

With today’s advancements in technology, the ubiquitous internet of things has allowed factories to be supported by powerful sensor systems, that inform operational engineers about the status of the machinery responsible for the creation of products. These sensors that track speed, heat, vibration and other metrics that serve as indication on how they are performance, and how close they are from needing maintenance.

To connect these sensors together and aggregate information, powerful and flexible servers have to be installed, gathering data and translating it into a form that is readable by engineers. This project was a brief blue-sky consultant engagement – my role was to understand and decompose the processes involved in the installation of these sensors into the server, and designing a solution that provided the most user-friendly, plug-and-play experience for customers.

Current solutions involved manually coding the different setups and drivers into the server, following a 100+ page step-by-step user guide. Following a kick-off workshop and extensive studying of the setup document, the main flows were established and iterated upon with the ultimate goal of simplification.  I strived to avoid the current coding-heavy installation process and translate it into a UI that was tolerant and helpful in avoiding user error. The final result was a step-by-step installation wizard, coupled with a sensor dashboard that provides basic information about the current established connections.

The project was very successful in providing the company with a firm vision that they can use as an ambitious target for their products in the future.