An HCI View of Configuration Problems
This work addresses configuration issues for system administrators, particularly non-professionals, but is incremental as it reframes an existing problem without introducing new methods or data.
The paper identifies that many configuration problems arise from outdated text-based interfaces that assume deep system knowledge, which no longer matches the expanded, less professional administrator group. It frames system configuration as a new HCI problem and outlines key obstacles and design implications for improved interfaces.
In recent years, configuration problems have drawn tremendous attention because of their increasing prevalence and their big impact on system availability. We believe that many of these problems are attributable to today's configuration interfaces that have not evolved to accommodate the enormous shift of the system administrator group. Plain text files, as the de facto configuration interfaces, assume administrators' understanding of the system under configuration. They ask administrators to directly edit the corresponding entries with little guidance or assistance. However, this assumption no longer holds for todays administrator group which has expanded greatly to include non- and semi-professional administrators. In this paper, we provide an HCI view of today's configuration problems, and articulate system configuration as a new HCI problem. Moreover, we present the top obstacles to correctly and efficiently configuring software systems, and most importantly their implications on the design and implementation of new-generation configuration interfaces.