The project: OpenBMC interface
OpenBMC is a basic Linux distribution for controlling embedded baseboard management controllers (BMCs) using a variety of open-source technologies. Baseboard management controllers themselves are a type of service processor that monitor a physical piece of hardware (server, computer, etc.) using various sensors, and communicate different status back to the system administrator. You can view the details of the OpenBMC project on Github.
My team and I were responsible for building out the OpenBMC user interface.
My role: UX design & Front-end Development
My role for openBMC project involved working with a team of design leads, designers and UX researchers to create a small footprint* graphical user interface that integrates with a backend REST API. I worked with the team to think through and sketch out UX designs as well as building all the front-end HTML and SCSS for the interface.
*The complete GUI final build was required to stay under 1MB in size.
Design thinking & wireframing
The team collaborated on thinking through challenges with the interface design utilizing Design Thinking sessions. Design workshops based on user research helped focus the project on the most important aspects. Work was broken down into sprints tackling individual parts of the interface. During each sprint there were many sketching sessions to think through the UX. I would help sketch, think through design problems and wireframe.
UX prototypes and HTML
Once the UX was designed and the visual designer created high fidelity page comps, I was then responsible for building out the code for the front-end. Utilizing HTML, SCSS I first created clickable prototypes that were used for user testing. The prototypes were built to be responsive to fit various screen sizes from tablet to desktop. Testing was done in an iterative basis and code changes were made according to user feedback. The prototype HTML was coded at a production level. Once a sprint was complete, the HTML template was handed over to a front-end engineer for javascript integration into the back-end API.
Overall this is what has gone into developing the OpenBMC GUI for the open source BMC project. I enjoyed playing roles of both UX Designer and front-end developer. I enjoy the ability of taking UX design from messy sketches up to clean code.
