The process of migrating data from one system to another can be complex and difficult. To aid with this we(Microsoft) created a guide to help developers navigate through a multi-set of tools and stages, this would serve as a single source of truth for migrating data.
This V.1 guide had seen some positive feedback from customers but also suffered issues surrounding navigation, usability, and content strength.
I was the UX lead designer for this project. I worked with a researcher, Program Manager, Content writers, and engineers to create a web experience for customers looking to migrate their data structure.
Design research, Program management, Engineering
Here is a look at the Data Migration Guide V1. This had existed for about 6 months before moving into the second iteration.
To help build parity with other Microsoft sites and docs I ran a quick “Microsoft Analysis” to determine patterns that could be leveraged with the new version of this guide. This would also ensure our users could easily understand the benefits of migrating and the process.
Based on customer feedback and my internal analysis I developed a new user workflow for the updated Migration Guide. This new workflow would optimize guide navigation as well as provide quick links to recommended migration paths. It would also provide more meaningful information on benefits to migrating to Microsoft cloud platforms. (Something that was missing from V1)
A big part of this redesign was also to help customers understand how migration works overall. This process can always seem a bit complicated, especially to newer engineers.
The diagram to the right showcases how developers should think about migration and how all the guides will walk you through the process. Each guide will have these stages Pre-migration, migration, and post-migration.
Often developers may find themselves in a cyclic state in post-migration, where they are remediating their applications and validating the data being imported.
After several iterations the new data migration guide finalized around this design. This designs target was to integrate these major concepts:
Below is my final design that was approved by my team and developed by my engineer:
This flow will focuses Migrating from SQL Server on-prem to Azure SQL database
Taking a step back we can see how the new version moved past the old. This version brings more simplicity as well as expandability to the sites structure.
This update was released in May 2018, with an increase in customer usage. The new site design is more scalable and has been able to support more migration paths.
