Knative UX
This is a multipart project stemming from my role as UX Lead at Knative, an open source cloud platform.
I spoke about this project at Kubecon Paris 2024!
Part 1- The Website
I started by making a MVP re-design, as I was still extremely new to the community and did not want to create too much extra workload by altering the webpage. This was also a great exercise to get acquainted with their website and product offerings. I made some simple aesthetic changes, including a more accessible and brand cohesive colour scheme, better spacing, improved diagrams, and the addition of alt text.
Part 1.2 - Documentation IA
The UX Working group identified a huge issue for Knative users in regards to the website which is that of the documentation structuring. But we encountered a huge issue with doing user research in open source.
There is no way to directly contact users :(
This is because in open source, data on who the user is cannot be collected by the developers. What we did to get around this issue without significantly affecting the way open source communities interact, was a UXR study at a Knative booth during a conference.
We had a survey and a card sorting exercise using sticky notes. We sought to answer questions such as:
- Do users really want a distinction between administrator and developer topics?
- What are the main categories people use?
- Are there any categories people could do without?
We then analyzed the data and based on our insights we did a re-structuring of the Knative Eventing Documentation.
- We found that there was a lot of confusion around certain terms, namely the sugar controller so we decided to include an FAQ section so people could learn more.
- We also found that the two most common categories were Admin and Developer topics, indicating that these are indeed helpful categorizations.
Mascot
This is the Knative Duck! His placeholder name is Steve and he is a duck as Kntive uses Ducktyping. His webbed feet pattern reflect the Kubernetes logo as Knative is built on top of Kubernetes. Additionally his colours match the Knative logo, and his overall feel matches that of other Cloud Native Computing Foundation mascots such as the Go Gopher.
Steve has been printed on shirts and will be featured on the webpage in an upcoming website update!
For more information /documentation feel free to contact me.