Usability testing of Firewall and Storage

Method

• Test items: Cockpit - storage volumes, firewall
• Method: Moderated remote usability test via BlueJeans ~ 45 mins
• 9 Participants: 2 external and 7 internal system admins
• Researcher: Sara Chizari and Steve Cauffman
• Notes: Andreas Nilsson

Research Goal

• Investigate usability issues of Cockpit UI

Task overview

• Firewall configurations
• Create Encrypted Filesystems

Recommendations

Storage

• Specify the default mount path to users. Users were confused about where the default mount location would be.
• Make manual mount more salient to the user or have a modal pop up that asks the user to mount the volume or not.
• Allow dragging movement functionality for the format dialogue, or move background process information into a notification that appears on the screen in the space not occupied by the modal.
• Provide an indicator such as “*” (a commonly used indicator) to show that a field on the format drive modal is required to complete the process.
• Move encryption options into a separate tab within the format drive modal.
• Removes multiple drop downs and may be easier to navigate for participants.

Firewall

• Add options to edit services that currently exist instead of forcing a deletion of a service and re-adding it.
• Add tooltips or documentation to provide context for users on relationship between allowed services and active zones.
• Provide more options for subnet or range selection. Participants indicated that multiple subnets can exist at once. Range format should be adjusted to conform to participant expectations.
• Make Firewall section label more salient to the user (i.e. larger label). Possibly enable navigation to firewall via “Services” as well. Multiple users expected to find Firewall configuration in “Services”.