as a component of the PATHWORKS version 5.0 for DOS and Windows product. The foci for that PATHWORKS release set the tone for the ManageWORKS design. The PATH\'VORKS version 5.0 design objectives were to
l. Enhance the usability of the PATHWORKS prod uct. Since the PATHWORKS system was rooted in a command line-based user interface, the goal was to develop a graphical user interface for the system that was based on the Microsoft Windows operating system. Such a user interface would be contemporary, easier to learn, and easier to use.
PC LAN and System Management Tools
2. Enhance the manageabi l ity of the PATH\VORKS
product. The goal was to reduce the cost of own ersh ip by improving the insta ll a t ion, configura tion, and administration of the system.
The ManageWORKS design team used two voice ot�the-customer techniques to provide more depth
and detail for the two h igh- leve l p roduct design
objectives. First, the team used Contextual I nquiry
to determine a customer profile and to develop a clearer statement of the user's work. ' Then, the
team tested user interface prototypes with cus tomers by means of formal usability testing. From
15 to 20 customers and users pa rticipated in each
of three rou nds of usabil i ty testi ng.
Early in the investi gation, Contextual l nqu iry revealed that the profile of the PATHWORKS system admin istrator had changed drastically during the five years since the PATH\X'ORKS product was first released. A typical system administrator in the era of PATHWORKS version 1 .0 had been a VAX/VMS sys tem manager who inherited the responsibil ity of installing a nd managing a PC file and print -sharing product. The interface into the system was a VT-class term inal running command l ine-based utilit ies. Tod ay, a system administrator is usu a l ly a PC user who is qu ite fam i l iar with graphical user interfaces. Such an administrator is more l ikely to be trainee! in the installation, configuration, and management of PCs and PC networking software than his/her pre clecessors. This change in the profile encour aged us to shift the PATHWORKS focus from using host basecl command l i ne utilities to manage the system to using client-based graphical utili ties.
We also profi led the customer network configu ration . During the same five years, i t changed from a very simp le and homogeneous environment with just a few PATI-fW'ORKS servers to a med ium-to-large
heterogeneous PC LA N . At presen t, configurations comprise network operating systems that consist of Novell NetWare, Microsoft LAN M anager, and Apple AppleShare file and print serv ices, as wel l as other services that are emerging in the PC LAN
environment. The network operating systems are deployed on their native platforms and by Digital
on the Open VMS and DEC OSF/ 1 platforms. Each sys
tem has its own tools to manage the cl ients and the servers. Each has a d ifferent user interfac e that
resll lts i n a long learning curve and thus high train
ing costs or low productivity for system administra tors. Customers reported that they desired tools with a cons istent user interface to manage this diversi ty.
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The team employed software usabi l ity testing throughout the development l ife cycle. Two usabil ity tests were performed w i th early design proto types; the final test was p erformed with our first pass at a detailed concept design. We performed the usabi l i ty testing with customers to test user i nterface and fu nctional element design co ncepts that we developed as a resu lt of the Contextual I nqu iry. The user thus served as a design partici pant. W i th each i teration of the formal testing, we tested specific functional concepts in three key areas:
(1)
mechanisms to navigate among the man aged entities, (2) mechanisms to organize these enti ties, and (3) the fllnctional capabi lity i nherent in the management directives supported. (Note that, in this paper, the servers, s ervices, and resources m anaged by means of the ManageWORKS software are collectively referred to as ma naged en tities.) The m ajor lessons that we learned from this testing effort and then appl ied to the user inter face and software designs are as fol lows:1 . The ManageWORKS software had to p rovide
mechanisms to navigate among a diverse set of
managed entit ies o n the LAN or in some user
defined management domain . Users want to be able to v iew and thus " d iscover" the entities that are to be m a n aged . The system had to present the managed entities in graphical d isplay formats that were fam i liar ami enticing to users. Users welcome the abi l i ty to support differen t styles of presentation . Final ly, users need easy mecha nisms to navigate through the hierarchy of an entity.
2. Navigation mechanisms, as j ust d escribed , work well for novice users but become ted ious and constrai ning for more experi enced users, as we could attest to after our experience with the pro totypes. The solu tion that we presented to users al lowed them to create custom views of their managed entities, i.e. , to organize their manage ment domains. This concept was wel l received by users during usabi lity testing.
3. The M anageWORKS prod uct had to provide mechanisms that consistently performed the functions that were com mon among a d iverse
set of management applications. The product
design presents users with an object-oriented view of the m anaged environment. The bui lding block of this design is the object, an abstraction of a m anageable entity such as a server or a net
work router. Each object is a member of a single
The Design ofJIIJcmageWONKS: A User Interface Framework
object class that describes the set of object i nstan ces with i n it. The ManageWOHKS appl i cation renders objects to the user as icons i n a v iewer. Fo r example, for a LAN that contains three NerWare servers, the object class called NerWare Servers wou ld contain three objects, each of which represents one of the three i mli vidual NetWare servers on the LAN. When users focus on an object, the tool reveals wh ich actions are val id i n the object's cu rrent context. This approach differs from the traditional com
mand l i ne approach in which the user first selects the u t i ! ity (acti on) and then specifies the objects upon wh ich to act. Interesti ngly, whereas novice users fou n d t h is object -focused concept easy to grasp, t hose who considered themselves strong users of the traditional com mand l ine management u t i l it ies experienced dif ficu lty i n grasping the new concept.
4. The typical customer has a d iverse a nd large
(200 to 1 , 000) n u m ber of enti ties to manage. To
add ress this need , the prototype testing pre sented users wi t h the abi l i ty w manage more than one entity at the same time and the abi l it y t o ma nage many entities a s one. Users l i ked being able to view and m odify the properties of mult iple entities at the same t i me as wel l as being able to modify the same property across a set of l i ke entities.
'5 . In addition to providing a consistent user i nter face, the ManageWORKS product should integrate the m anagement tools into one workspace . User feedback Jed to the design of the user i nterface framework as the del ivery veh icle for a d iverse set of man agement appl ications.