SOTI MobiControl: Global Settings

The Problem

Global Settings within MobiControl does not have its own section. Users need to dig down through multiple pages and areas of the product to find them. Once the user locates the page, it is buried at the bottom of the page with little real-estate. The information belonging to each setting is hidden within dialogs and doesn’t provide any information upfront. Our users would have no idea if a setting has been configured or not without having to go through many clicks.

• A lot of clicks to get to any setting information
• No categorization
• Duplicate settings with different names that have the same entry point
• Naming convention isn’t intuitive
• Lack of visibility for configured settings

The Approach

How can we make this section more visible and intuitive for our users? We started by first looking at the types of settings that are currently available. By going through each setting it gave us a good idea for categorization and grouping that could be done.

• Provide main categorization with relevant settings
• Move away from vague titles such as ‘Misc’ and ‘Other’
• Create sections for platform specific settings to make them more accessible to users
• Provide a global search to navigate through for users to find settings quickly

Mapping

While starting the mapping stage, there were a few behaviours we needed to keep in mind. Since this section is massive, it was important to make sure all stakeholders were in agreement before starting sketching.

• How can we eliminate unnecessary steps?
• How can the user get a preview at a glance?
• How can the user make changes and save on the fly?
• What happens if the user doesn’t save their changes?
• What happens if the user doesn’t have permissions?

Sketching

We started with focusing on the UX of the entry point. The entry point was extremely important to get right and wanted to make sure we took the time to think this through. This would dictate the main behaviours and how the user would navigate through Global Settings. Three sketch options were created with pros and cons presented to key stakeholders.

Option 1 / Sidebar with Tabs

Pros

• Provides separation of sub pages
• Utilizes current components and users are familiar with the behaviours already

Cons

• Causes a lot of mouse movement
• Breaks eye flow from vertical navigation to horizontal
• Creates a pause for the user to digest the information being provided to them

Option 2 / Sidebar with Divided Sections

Pros

• Navigation flow shows hierarchy of information
• User can search through all options within a section

Cons

• Information can get really long and requires a lot of scrolling
• Settings within each category are not visible and would need to go through each page to find what they need
• Search only works within the category, not as a global search

Option 3 / Sidebar with Child Options

Pros

• Categories and settings are shown in one spot
• Only expanding the current category being viewed creates a more focused journey
• Allows the user to tackle the task at hand
• Visibility into all the settings that belong to a category
• Search will work globally and bridge the gap for the users that know the setting but not the location

Cons

• Requires a few more clicks to see all sub pages
• New behaviour being introduced, will need to provide guidance to users

After making our decision to move forward with option 3, we were able to tackle the individual settings for how they would look and feel.

Prototype

High-fidelity mockups were created based on the approved sketches.

Outcome

We received very positive feedback from our users. A lot of our users have been waiting a while for this section to be updated to the new UI and was very excited to use it. Some of the feedback included:

• Users found the UI to be smooth
• Navigation was easy to use and find the settings they were looking for
• Looks clean
• Happy to see this within the new migration