Redesigning the Logs experience

OFF

Feb 20 15:12:27.323

service

6ccb975c-rwk5m

reemarker.core.InvalidReferenceException: [... Exception message was already printed;

93 more

Logs files are machine-readable but lack the human touch that would make troubleshooting (and amount of tickets associated to this feature) smoother. In collaboration with my manager’s guidance, I led the discovery of core pain points, prioritized targeted solutions, and drove the end‑to‑end redesign of our log console.

CLIENT

Liferay

MY ROLE

Product Designer

DURATION

2 Months

TL;DR - Project snapshot

WHY LOGS

Logs is the single most-visited screen for DevOps, engineers and SREs, yet it buries users in raw JSON and hard-to-reach filters, driving a flood of “can’t read / can’t search” tickets

THE GOAL

- Reduce time to troubleshoot logs
- Increase UX maturity level of logs compared to competing/related products
- Reduce number of issues related to logs radiality

WHAT I DID

Led end to end initiative;
Created structured research adopted as a framework for future discoveries;
Improved Search and Readability for the Logs page with the redesign

BUSINESS

45% fewer support tickets associated with Logs readabilty within the first release window

Why Logs needed a glow up

Single line overload

Sometimes log events are too long or even based on json entries that are not easily read, forcing the users to scroll endless horizontally

Lack of visual hieracrchy

There were a few color-coded sections, but no syntax highlighting to read the message section to identify log levels

Findability issues

Filters buried under +3 clicks, the amount of logs that customers have to parse and the limiting UX facilities makes troubleshooting hard

Logs

Term

Search logs

Application Logs

All Services

Last 24 hours

Feb 20 15:12:19.875 build-236 [liferay-7d5584d55d-6qgpd] 2021-02-20 23:12:19.874 ERROR [liferay/scheduler_dispatch-2][IndividualSegmentsChecker:243] Unable to retrieve individuals for individual segment 431544519057338661

at com.liferay.portal.kernel.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$WorkerTask._runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:752)

at com.liferay.portal.kernel.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$WorkerTask.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:664)

at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

Feb 20 15:12:20.038 build-236 [liferay-7d5584d55d-6qgpd] 2021-02-20 23:12:20.037 ERROR [liferay/scheduler_dispatch-2][IndividualSegmentsChecker:243] Unable to retrieve individuals for individual segment 379259098071974233

Feb 20 15:12:20.038 build-236 [liferay-7d5584d55d-6qgpd] javax.ws.rs.ClientErrorException: Unexpected response status 404 with response message: {"errorAttributes":{"path":"/api/1.0/individual-segments/379259098071974233/individuals","error":"Not Found","status":404,"timestamp":1613862739966}}

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.client.JSONWebServiceClientImpl._validateResponse(JSONWebServiceClientImpl.java:200)

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.client.JSONWebServiceClientImpl.doGet(JSONWebServiceClientImpl.java:103)

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.client.AsahFaroBackendClientImpl.getIndividualResults(AsahFaroBackendClientImpl.java:155)

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.messaging.IndividualSegmentsChecker._checkIndividualSegmentMemberships(IndividualSegmentsChecker.java:202)

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.messaging.IndividualSegmentsChecker._checkIndividualSegmentsMemberships(IndividualSegmentsChecker.java:291)

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.messaging.IndividualSegmentsChecker.checkIndividualSegments(IndividualSegmentsChecker.java:72)

at com.liferay.segments.asah.connector.internal.messaging.CheckIndividualSegmentsMessageListener.doReceive(CheckIndividualSegmentsMessageListener.java:76)

at com.liferay.portal.kernel.messaging.BaseMessageListener.receive(BaseMessageListener.java:26)

at com.liferay.portal.kernel.scheduler.messaging.SchedulerEventMessageListenerWrapper._processMessage(SchedulerEventMessageListenerWrapper.java:127)

at com.liferay.portal.kernel.scheduler.messaging.SchedulerEventMessageListenerWrapper.receive(SchedulerEventMessageListenerWrapper.java:98)

at com.liferay.portal.kernel.messaging.InvokerMessageListener.receive(InvokerMessageListener.java:74)

at com.liferay.portal.messaging.internal.ParallelDestination$1.run(ParallelDestination.java:56)