As a Senior Design Manager on the Office Media Group, I oversee a team of product designers with the mission to deliver modern video experiences across Microsoft 365. I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with the Stream team and our esteemed partners to amplify video capabilities across M365, including Teams, Outlook, Viva, Loop, Office, and more.
Team
Office Media Group at Microsoft
Role
Senior Design Manager
Skills
Team Management
Product Strategy (MVP & Growth)
UI/UX Design
User Research
Partner/Stakeholder Engagement and Alignment
Enhancing productivity and connectivity at work with modern video experiences for Microsoft 365 customers
Our mission extends beyond the mere functionality of playing and recording videos. As a part of the Partner Video Experiences team under Office Media Group, I facilitate in working with the team to strategize and define the Jobs to Be Done for our users. This involves in-depth research into the needs of M365 users in various workplace scenarios, shaping how video can seamlessly integrate into their workflows. Our understanding spans industries, company sizes, demographics, and even the diverse ways users interact with M365 products and Microsoft’s competitors.
Videos are powerful and how we use it in the workplace across apps differ, but with a carefully crafted user experience that fits within the scenario, videos helps boost productivity, efficiency and connection making it a powerful feature.
Video Clips in Teams
One notable public-facing example of our work is the Teams Video Clips (TVCs) feature. Video Clips in Teams allows users to record and send a short video message in Teams chat. Respondents can play and watch their videos whilst utilizing captions, playback speed, etc. To make TVC a robust capability, our PVX team harnessed Stream’s core video player and camera functionalities to introduce short-form video messaging within the Teams chat environment.
When I took on the role as Senior Design Manager, one of my first tasks was to lead the design team and bring our MVP feature to the public. To do so, it required experience and business alignment across many stakeholders from our team and Teams team while all delivering an design experience that holds up to Microsoft’s design principles. TVCs successfully launched in November 2022, demonstrating its value through early user adoption where it exceed 5M MAU in just the first month. This not only affirmed our belief that video messaging boosts productivity but also signalled the beginning of further development for the feature.
Championing High-Quality UX Aligned with Microsoft's Design Principles
In my role, ensuring the delivery of top-notch UX has always been a primary focus. I’ve consistently strived for our design team to meet Microsoft’s visual design principles and guidelines. Upholding these standards has been both a challenge and a rewarding journey. It’s about more than just aesthetics; it’s about creating interfaces that are intuitive, user-centric, and a pleasure to interact with. By meticulously aligning our designs with Microsoft’s visual design principles, I’ve aimed to make our products not only visually appealing but also highly functional and user-friendly, all while ensuring they resonate with the specific “Jobs to Be Done” of our users. This commitment to high-quality UX, combined with a deep understanding of user needs, has been pivotal in crafting digital experiences that stand as a testament to our dedication to excellence.
Growth - Beyond MVP
Since its launch, my task at hand has evolved into enhancing and expanding this feature. Currently, we are highly focussed on growing our user-base and active sessions with TVCs by leading and working with the team to devise product strategies. This strategy is crafted through many on-going customer outreach and research so we can understand what the needs and pain points are with our users. It also involves collaboration with our data and analytics team to utilize quantitative and qualitative data on proving out our vNext designed experiences to fit into our roadmap. It continuously also involves stakeholder, leadership and cross-org buy-in all to show how our strategy will drive adoption and filter into a user’s habit loop.
There is more to come in the next several months so keep an eye out for video experiences in M365!
Team Management
Leading people with empathy to unlock their full potential, while inspiring and fostering a secure and nurturing environment for the growth of designers
During my time at Microsoft, I’ve had the chance to wear different hats, like diving into IC design and product strategy. But above all, being the leader of a design team has let me stay true to what I value most.
One thing that really clicks with me as a manager is leading with empathy. At the end of the day, we’re all just humans, and our designers come from various backgrounds and different points in their careers. So, I make it a point to put myself in their shoes and guide them in a way that suits their unique needs. We do this through regular one-on-ones and career check-ins, all while making sure our team keeps delivering top-notch work.
Another big part of managing for me is being an inspiration. Designers are some of the most creative folks around, and it’s crucial to keep that creative fire burning throughout their careers. That’s why I’m all about creating an environment that keeps the creative juices flowing, not just for our team’s benefit, but also to keep me inspired along the way!