Design Sprint Decide and Storyboard: Workbench One-Screen UX Validation
Scenario
Wednesday 2026-08-05. Tuesday closed with 4 sketches uploaded as A/B/C/D. The team invokes tool-design-sprint-decide-and-storyboard.
Art Museum Layout
Shared Figma; 4 sketches A/B/C/D arrayed. Attribution stripped.
Heat Map
12 dots total (4 voters x 3).
| Sketch | Dots | Hottest elements |
|---|---|---|
| Sketch A | 5 | Spatial mental-model layout; ranked anomaly band |
| Sketch B | 3 | Inline flame-graph drill-down; time-correlation |
| Sketch C | 2 | Phone-first; vital signs metaphor |
| Sketch D | 2 | Blast-radius graph as central |
Speed Critique Notes
Sketch A
What the team sees: Spatial layout that maps to SRE mental model (broken=left, spread=right, action=bottom). Ranked anomaly band makes “what to look at first” explicit.
Compelling: Spatial layout; ranked action band.
What would worry me: Service map top-left requires accurate service graph (config-heavy); for new customers without service-graph config, the layout breaks down. Action band may be too prescriptive for senior SREs.
Sketch B
What the team sees: Time-correlation primary; inline drill-down avoids source-tool revert.
Compelling: Time-correlation ribbon; inline flame-graph.
What would worry me: Time-series ribbon at top burns vertical space that senior SREs may need for other context; inline flame-graph drill-down works for trace incidents but breaks for state-pollution incidents.
Sketch C
What the team sees: Phone-first single-glance vital signs.
Compelling: Phone-first; Apple Watch metaphor.
What would worry me: Vital signs at top assumes you already know what’s broken; doesn’t answer “what is broken.” Long-press on laptop is awkward.
Sketch D
What the team sees: Blast-radius graph as central; reasoning inline.
Compelling: Blast-radius visualization; inline reasoning.
What would worry me: Graph-first requires high-quality dependency data which not all design partners have; reasoning-inline may take screen space at expense of data.
Straw Poll
| Voter | Pick |
|---|---|
| Priya | A |
| Marcus | B |
| Ari | A |
| Jin | A |
Supervote
Decider: Priya.
Supervote placement: Priya places all 3 supervote dots on Sketch A (Sprint book canonical 3-dot supervote). All-in-one (no rumble).
Decider’s rationale: Sketch A answers both first-60-sec questions (“what is broken” via service-map blast-radius; “what to look at first” via ranked anomaly band) without conflicting metaphors. C1 won the heat map (5 of 12). The service-graph-required concern is a config issue Marcus can solve at onboarding-time; not a UX problem. Sketch B’s inline drill-down is the best idea from the rumble alternatives and the team should consider incorporating it into Sketch A’s anomaly drill-down (out of scope for this sprint storyboard).
Rumble vs All-in-One
Decision: All-in-one (Sketch A). Sketch B’s inline drill-down noted as v0.2 enhancement.
Storyboard
8 panels from PagerDuty alert through 60-sec orient through stay decision.
| Panel | What customer sees | Action | Response | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Phone lock screen 02:34 AM; PagerDuty alert (critical) | Taps alert | Opens PagerDuty | Pre-Workbench context |
| 2 | PagerDuty incident page; “Open Workbench” deeplink button | Taps deeplink | Workbench loads | Frictionless entry; auto-auth via PagerDuty SSO |
| 3 | Workbench one-screen phone view: service map mini + spread chart mini + top action | Reads (5 sec) | - | First-5-sec scan: “user-service is red; spreading to checkout” |
| 4 | Same view; second read | Reads (15 sec) | - | First-20-sec: identifies “what is broken” |
| 5 | Top action callout: “Check user-service deployment - last deploy 12 min ago” | Reads (15 sec) | - | First-35-sec: “what to look at first” answered |
| 6 | Taps “View deployment” inline drill-down | Tap | Opens deployment diff inline (no source-tool revert) | Inline drill-down prevents revert |
| 7 | Sees diff; identifies the change causing the incident | Reads (10 sec) | - | 45-55-sec: hypothesis formed |
| 8 | Taps “Roll back” inline action | Tap | Rollback initiated via deployment-tool API | Action-taken; incident-handling continues outside Workbench scope |
Decider Checkpoint
- Priya confirms Sketch A supervote (all-in-one; no rumble)
- Priya confirms 8-panel storyboard build-ready
- Priya confirms storyboard scope (8 panels feasible Thursday)
- Priya accepts the inline-drill-down + service-graph-config concerns
- Priya commits Friday 14:00-18:00 PT
Signed: Priya (founder, PM), 2026-08-05 16:55 PT.