1. Combine the three AWS Console product offerings in to a IDE extension for Visual Studio.
2. Modernization takes multiple years for customers. Reduce the time it takes for developers to modernize (refactor) code by bringing it from years to weeks.
3. Provide a smart guided recommendations for customer development teams to plan modernization journey.
Discovery of the Microsoft Visual Studio extension on a VS Marketplace by searching keywords such as port, extract, refactor, modernize surfaces the toolkit extension. Developers can download, provide AWS credentials and start assessing their source code to get a report on the overview of their application.
For Version 1 that was launched, the challenge at that time was limited understanding about the customer mental models, how modernization (refactoring) is perceived by .NET customers. UX got an opportunity to launch and learn about customer feedback.
The following flow showcases customer assesing the source code as landing on a dashboard with overview. There are two paths to modernize the workload, 1. Port to .net core 2. Extract micro service and once ready they can test the application.
Porting path is showcased with metric such as Incompatible NuGet packages, Incompatible APIs that conveys customer how their application source code is and incompatibilities to improve their code as a first step towards modernization by fixing the code. The fix essentially refactors the code and makes it ready to be ported to newer versions of .NET which as compatible with cloud.
Customers have monolith applications that needs to be extracted in to smaller parts to make them manageable. This process takes multiple weeks and with this new tool customers can achieve faster, guided appraoch to extraction.
The graph was simplified with providing high level groups than can be expanded in to classes and nodes with further classification. The group showcases the incompatibilities as a data point suggesting the impact it may have if they refactor a group of classes by extracting it to micro service.
Once the extraction is complete, the graph shows the incompatibilities as removed. Customer can then test deploy the extracted micro service to ensure it runs as expected. This process is a iteration towards the overall modernization.
User can port the application to a dedicated .net version, which improves the code, and refactors it. Once ported a project, it can be deployed to ensure it works.
After the first version was launched. I conducted UX research, gathered customer feedback on launched V1 and realized the users were still not clear on how everything works together.
Users were successfully able to complete code refactoring and improvement to their source code. However, they were not clear on what is the status of their modernization. Where do they stand in this journey, what are the steps to become fully modernized?, what actions they need to take in order to be fully refactored.
1. When I analyzed the problem I realized that the users are not provided with a single metric that reflects the starting point in the modernization journey. Example. A customer onboards the source code and the system shows them the .NET score at 20%. This becomes a single source for the users to track their modernization status.
2. The modernization score:
Since modernization score can be best represented in a % percentage. This can provide users a direction on where their application stands in the modernization scale. 20% is poorly modernized vs 90% is a well modernized application.
3. Steps to achieve the goal
The dashboard was redesigned in such a way that it shows users how many projects they are away to achieve 100% <NET SCORE in other words fully modernized. Today it was extremely difficult for them to undrstand where they are and how many years it may take for them to be modernized.
4. Smart Recommedations
Users can get smart recommendation on actions that will exactly show them expected outcome in terms of % modernization achieved. One click to port recommended project gets them 30% .NET score, another click get them 20% more and so on.
When we launched version 2 it became immediately a hit amongst developers, they loved the product as they could now plan their development sprints according to the recommendations. They now could get an exact % value of their modernization score. In Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace the product had 30k+ downloads in first few months.
The design prototype showcases a journey from customer problem articulation to e2e workflow.
To view Design prototype Figma Link click below.