IBM Cloud File Storage for VPC provides scalable, enterprise-grade network file systems for cloud workloads.
I led UX for major product capabilities, helping translate complex infrastructure functionality into clear workflows that made the product easier to configure and manage. I led the design process from Beta to GA over the course of 2 years.
Role & Responsibilities:
- Defining provisioning and management workflows
- Aligning UX direction with product and engineering teams
- Designing key capabilities including snapshots, performance controls, and mount workflows
- Validating designs through usability testing with internal and sponsor users
Outcomes:
- 3 International Design Awards
- 2,800+ new deployments within a year of general availability
- Highest internal product score in IBM history (based on rigorous internal guidelines)
The opportunity
Infrastructure teams rely on network storage to support production workloads across cloud environments. However, configuring and managing storage systems often requires navigating complex infrastructure concepts such as networking, performance tuning, snapshot policies, and mount configuration.
Without thoughtful product design, these workflows can introduce friction and increase the likelihood of configuration errors.
Improving the experience was critical for:
- supporting enterprise adoption
- Reducing configuration errors
- Enabling advanced features such as snapshots and performance controls
- Helping teams manage storage infrastructure more efficiently
The challenge
File storage infrastructure is inherently complex. Users must manage:
- Provisioning configuration
- Network connectivity
- Performance characteristics
- Snapshot policies
- Protocol compatibility
Many of these capabilities can be difficult for users to understand and configure correctly, especially for teams transitioning from traditional on-premise storage environments to cloud infrastructure.
The challenge was to design an experience that supported powerful infrastructure capabilities while reducing cognitive load and making workflows easier to understand.
Design strategy
To address these challenges, I focused on several design principles.
Clarify the storage model: Structure the experience around how users think about managing storage rather than how the infrastructure is implemented.
Make system health visible: Provide clear signals so users can understand the status and behavior of storage resources.
Guide complex workflows: Design provisioning and configuration flows that help users make informed decisions while maintaining flexibility for advanced users.
These principles informed the design of provisioning workflows, snapshot management interfaces, performance configuration, and mount experiences.
User testing
We conducted usability sessions with internal users and sponsor customers to validate key workflows such as provisioning storage, configuring snapshots, and managing performance settings.
Testing revealed that users often struggled with infrastructure terminology and the relationships between networking configuration, storage capacity, and performance options. Iterating on these insights helped simplify core workflows while maintaining the flexibility required by enterprise environments.
Key experience areas
Provisioning Workflows: The provisioning experience was redesigned to make configuration clearer and easier to complete. Users were guided through essential setup steps such as capacity, connectivity, and performance while still allowing access to advanced configuration when needed.
Snapshot Management: Snapshots introduced powerful backup capabilities but required clear controls for creation, scheduling, and lifecycle management. The design focused on helping users understand when and why snapshots should be used.
Performance and Bandwidth Controls: Users needed to configure performance characteristics without deep infrastructure knowledge. The interface translated infrastructure performance concepts into understandable settings and guidance.
Mount Targets: Users needed to connect their storage resources to compute environments running virtual servers or containers. The interface simplified the process of generating mount instructions and validating connectivity.
Outcomes
The redesigned experience played a key role in helping the product successfully transition from beta to general availability and scale adoption across enterprise customers.
Within the first year of GA, the platform saw more than 2,800 new deployments and 200% year-over-year growth, reflecting strong adoption among teams running production workloads in the cloud. By simplifying complex provisioning workflows and clarifying storage configuration, the product reduced friction in one of the most critical areas of infrastructure management.
The design work also helped establish the product as a flagship infrastructure experience within the platform. The experience received three International Design Awards, recognizing the clarity and usability of the product in a traditionally complex domain.
Internally, the product achieved the highest internal product score in IBM history, reflecting strong feedback from internal reviews evaluating product experience, usability, and design quality.
Reflection
The redesigned experience helped translate complex infrastructure capabilities into workflows that were easier to configure and manage.
By structuring storage configuration around user goals rather than infrastructure architecture, the product reduced friction in one of the most critical areas of cloud infrastructure management.
The improvements supported broader adoption of file storage capabilities while enabling infrastructure teams to provision and manage resources with greater confidence.