Project Background
A startup founder approached us after a particularly challenging on-call shift. He spent hours investigating what seemed like a complex issue — only to discover it was a provider outage that could have been detected instantly.
With so many providers using different channels and formats, tracking outages created significant operational overhead and delayed critical incident response.
To solve this, we built a unified platform that monitors all status pages automatically and delivers alerts where teams already work: Slack, PagerDuty, Datadog, and Microsoft Teams.
The market response has been strong. Today, over 500 companies use the platform daily, which has processed more than 550 million status checks and has become the go-to solution for teams seeking faster outage detection and better operational visibility.
Challenges
- Aggregating Dozens of Status Pages. Every provider has its own status page format, making it difficult to pull everything into one clear, unified feed.
- Detecting Issues Before Providers Do. We aimed to spot outages quickly, even before an official status page update, and that wasn’t an easy technical hurdle.
- Scaling for Millions of Checks. With constant monitoring across thousands of vendors, we needed an architecture that could handle high traffic and real-time updates.
- Designing for Clarity. Status updates can be hard to follow; our goal was to make them clear and easy for teams to act on.
- Ensuring Reliable Notifications. Alerts had to reach users instantly through Slack, PagerDuty, Microsoft Teams, and other integrations, without delays or missed updates.
- Building Trust Through Accuracy. Given that the teams make key decisions on the platform, there’s no room for inconsistent or inaccurate data.
- Integrating External Services. Each service required a dedicated flow, custom API work, and attention to special scenarios.
- Complexity Without the Confusion. Some users needed in-depth data, while others preferred quick summaries. We had to serve both without adding complexity.
- Launching Fast While Scaling Ahead. The client needed a fast launch but also a solid foundation that could scale with future growth.
Our Solution
User Research & Persona Development
We began by studying the challenges faced by DevOps, SRE, and IT teams. From overworked support staff to IT managers struggling with fragmented status updates, we built detailed personas to understand their pain points.
Every insight shaped the features we knew we had to prioritize: real-time alerts, clear dashboards, and reliable third-party monitoring.
User Journey Mapping
Next, we mapped the full experience—from monitoring a service to receiving alerts and communicating incidents. Users needed a centralized view of all vendor statuses, early detection of outages, and seamless integration with their existing tools.
Mapping each step allowed us to create a smooth, intuitive flow that reduces noise and keeps teams informed.
Smart UX and Discovery Strategies
By analyzing competitors and observing real user workflows, we identified weak spots in existing monitoring tools. That insight guided a design that’s comprehensive but easy to navigate, keeping important alerts front and center.
Interface Design & Layout Planning
We designed a dashboard that makes complex data easy to digest. Wireframes broke down multiple feeds, alert settings, and status pages into intuitive sections that work seamlessly on both desktop and mobile, so users can monitor services anytime, anywhere.
Development
We developed the platform from scratch, including real-time site monitoring, instant alerts via email and webhooks, historical uptime tracking, and a dashboard to manage multiple websites. The backend efficiently handles thousands of URLs, keeping updates fast and reliable.
Testing & Iteration
Then we observed real users checking their sites and managing alerts. We noted where confusion occurred, which features delighted users, and what needed simplifying. Each insight was incorporated to make the platform easy, fast, and trustworthy.
Launch
Thanks to careful planning and streamlined development, the solution was launched quickly. Teams began monitoring services and catching outages before they impacted operations, validating the platform’s value and establishing a trusted solution in the IT monitoring space.
Results
The journey from concept to a working platform was exciting. With thoughtful planning and efficient execution, we delivered a solution that IT and DevOps teams could rely on. Users quickly started tracking their third-party services.
The breakthrough came when we recognized that businesses weren’t merely seeking outage alerts—they desired proactive, early warnings and a centralized dashboard to manage all their vendor statuses. By integrating official status updates with real-time crowdsourced reports, we provided exactly that, enhancing user experience and operational efficiency.
The results exceeded expectations. The client quickly validated their market, gained traction with IT and DevOps teams, and now has a scalable platform ready for expansion.
