Microsoft Office.com and App Gallery
Worked with team to redesign Office.com, the front door to Office 365. We focused on putting users and their content at the center of their experience to help them get back to work. I was responsible for leading the design of a new page called the Office Gallery. The Office Gallery showcases how users can get the most out of Office, with personalized recommendations and the full set of resources available with their subscription.
Where we started
When users used to log into Office 365, they would land on a page of all the apps they had available in their subscription. It was challenging to jump back into work since the user’s content was secondary to the system’s capabilities. Users could also open the app launcher to see the same set of apps. From there, they could navigate to My Apps, another list of apps.
Customer Feedback
“I don’t understand what Office 365 is and what I have access to.”
“I have a sea of tiles but I don’t know what 80% of the apps are. When I open an app, I have no idea how it could benefit my work flow.”
2017 First Release
The Office.com redesign and original page of the Office Gallery shipped in October 2017. On Office.com, we simplified the app section to reflect the core Office apps + a user’s recent apps. Users could navigate to the Gallery by clicking the “Explore all your apps” link on Office.com, to find their full list of all the apps. We added categories of recommended apps at the top of the page, based off apps they were already using.
2018 Shipped Improvements
Post first release, we saw low engagement on the recommended cards. We added a new category of cards that were related to the apps a user was already using. Through this experimentation, we found that users were far more interested in learning about apps they already use, and removed all of the app promotion cards. This drove up app referrals, with the list above the fold. The rotating feature cards lead to the discovery of new features.
