IBM IntelliMagic Vision Time Gaps
Designing accessible data-trust indicators to help mainframe analysts distinguish real gaps from filtered data, system failures, and zero values.
Role
Product Design Intern
Team
2 designers, 1 manager
Timeline
6 weeks (pivoted from Concert for Z to IntelliMagic halfway in)
Problem
No hierarchy in the filter summary and no way to tell blank gaps apart between three states: filtering, system failure, and a zero value.
There were really two problems layered on top of each other: the filter summary gave no consistent hierarchy of information, so users couldn't quickly parse what had changed, and that ambiguity carried straight into the graph. It rendered three completely different data states (a filter applied, a system outage, and an actual zero value) with the exact same visual treatment.
Why did this matter? Because the entire value of IntelliMagic is trust. If a user can't tell the difference between "nothing happened" and "something broke," they either miss a real incident or waste time chasing a false one. Either outcome erodes confidence in the tool.
The PROJECT
Meeting IntelliMagic, a monitoring tool for computer systems, and Time Gaps, an output generated as blank spaces within the IntelliMagic tool.
IntelliMagic is a monitoring tool for mainframes, computer systems that banks and other big companies rely on to process things like transactions, payments, and account records. It tells users what their infrastructure is doing, why, and what to watch out for.
Time Gaps, is the output generated whenever there's a break in the data timeline, shown through both a graph visualization and a text filter summary.
I picked this project up partway through my internship, taking over from an earlier design exploration by Joseph (one of the designers in my team) after being moved between a few workstreams (Multitenancy, Forecasting, and eventually Time Gaps). That hand-off shaped a lot of how I worked.
solution
The final demo!
Memories
An ode to my co-intern, Angela, my team, Cynthia, Kiko, and Quan, and my my off-shore manager, Jeneé (not pictured)!
They made such a big impact to my experience as an intern in IBM. That sense of community, mentorship, and my intern cohort at iBM made it so memorable, and I’m so grateful that our paths crossed. I loved the speaker sessions, mingling, and the hundreds of prompts with Figma Make and Bob i had to enter!
Cheers! And to end it off, IBM is like oxygen.
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
The products and designs I worked on are private, but I’m happy to chat more about my process over a call.
Reach out to me at lauracaiwu@berkeley.edu (or copy my email below)!