Modernizing the mainframe

Background

A scrum team was spun up with the goal of modernizing the mainframe using an Eclispe-based front-end GUI to interact with the mainframe. Early sprints saw the development team recreating the mainframe in the user interface, complete with its challenges. For example: Due to character length limitations on the mainframe, a lot of fields are cryptically named and to avoid confusing existing users, those names were reused in the UI. 

Key collaborative partners: Product Architect, Lead Developer, Technical Editor

Supporting resources: Corporate education was offered on progressive disclosure.

Create Database Description (DBD), before:

An Eclipse UI screen titled Created New Database Description (DBD) with a page title of AREA Statement for New DEDB, a page overview of Specifies AREA options for creating a new DEDB dabase, and AREA fields of DD1, DEVICE, SIZE, UOW1, UOW2, ROOT1, and ROOT2.

Approach and solution

Goal: Provide relevant on screen content for new users without them needing to read online help. 

I brought the English equivalents of the mainframe parameter names inline, with the mainframe versions added parenthetically for those users who already knew the fields by the mainframe label.

Overhauling the wizard screen design, we grouped relevant information together and ensured that everything was keyboard accessible. I added relevant and necessary overview information for the various sections. 

Create Database Description (DBD), after:

An Eclipse UI screen titled Create Database Description (DBD) with a page title of AREA Statement for New DEDB, a page overview of Specify the AREA statement parameters for the new data entry database DEDB). The AREA Statement includes an overview and each of the fields are written in English - Database definition name for DD1, for example.

Current version IMS Explorer for Development download: https://ibm.github.io/mainframe-downloads/eclipse-tools.html

Lessons learned and takeaways

By conducting several rounds of usability testing throughout the design updates, we validated the content decreased time to task completion. Testing results also showed that the additional content was helpful to users and provided a good entry point for new users.

Content needs were more fully embedded into the overall design process based on continual positive feedback during usability sessions and through our team-wide two day design thinking workshop that centered our design sprints around user needs through data-driven insights.

Awards

  • IBM Information Management User Technology Get it Together Award for working across organizations and product teams for the work on the IMS Explorer for Development Problems view based on customer feedback from usability session.
  • IBM Xena Award for excellence in creating YouTube videos for IMS Explorer for Development. These videos walk users through common first steps, such as importing resources and viewing the files graphically, and more complicated steps such as connecting to the IMS Universal drivers and running SQL queries. The videos received positive feedback from both customers and coworkers.