Microsoft
At Microsoft I was part of a studio called Big Park and we worked on projects that dealt with Microsoft’s 3D and mixed reality vision as well as working on the NFL Xbox app and the HoloLens. Specifically I was part of the operations team which was working closely with the engineering teams to ensure product reliability and availability.
I started at Microsoft as a Support Analyst and my role on the team was to work with the engineering teams to ensure product reliability and availability and to also triage issues and work with developers to fix bugs. The team heavily relied on internal monitoring systems and dashboards and while working as a Support Analyst I noticed that this process could be improved and made efficient. I talked with the managers and proposed a solution for new monitoring and dashboard systems and they liked the idea so I transitioned to a new role as a UX Engineer.
During this time I took lead on designing and developing a new dashboard and monitoring system and worked closely with the data engineers and data scientists on the team. Also, I worked with the data scientists on the team to come up with data visualizations that helped us to analyze our products and come up with user patterns that were not picked up through traditional monitoring and testing. Through this we were able to come up with interesting visualizations and story telling methods on the new products Microsoft was working on.
Below I’ve highlighted some of the steps I took to design and develop the internal tools while at Microsoft.
1. Requirements Gathering and Research
While designing the data visualization tool, I worked with the data scientist and managers on the team to gather requirements and come up with a strategy to visualize the data that was being collected and processed. The main driver in determining the data visualization we wanted was to figure out the questions we wanted answered about the software. Through these meetings and brainstorming we determined a data visualization to pursue and we found a javascript library that would help us achieve the goal.
Similarly, when designing the new monitoring and dashboard system for the operations team, I conducted brainstorming sessions to determine team needs and discussion the broad vision. After these brainstorming sessions we started a research phase to determine the feasibility of the project and see what tools are available and if it is even possible to develop the vision we had.
Through these meetings, discussions and brainstorming sessions, I was able to come up with a vision and something that was within our requirements in terms of development time and resources.
2. Design
After defining the requirements, the design process was smooth. I started by creating wireframes of the vision and direction based on the requirements gathering stage and iterated there with the stakeholders. After this was confirmed I was able to Come up with detailed UI designs of the product. We iterated on this stage through meetings with stakeholders to narrow down the design and ensure all things were considered.
3. Development
The development stage provided some hurdles as well as we were dealing with some new technologies and solutions that we hadn’t worked with before. Through the development process we found we had to change some design decisions and when this happened I went back to the original designs and continuously updated them in order to meet development requirements. Following an iterative process really helped as the design was constantly changing based on findings through development and technological limitations that were found.
After the development phase we were able to use the products to help with monitoring as well as to help find user patterns for the projects our team was supporting.
My work and time at Microsoft was very interesting and I learned quite a bit. The products we were dealing with were cutting edge such as AR technology and the HoloLens and being able to work on and build tools to help support these projects was a challenge that I learned a lot from.
Instilling a design first approach and following a user-centred process proved to be quite important and advocating for that and pushing this process to the managers was an important step. Throughout the design and development process I truly learned that following an iterative and user-centred design approach has many benefits. Also, I learned that through the development process many design decisions need to be changed which could not be accounted for and ensuring that the design can allow for these changes is important.
In this role, I got to work both as a UX designer and as a developer and this taught me many lessons on how designers can better work with developers and be cognizant of the development process and how best to interact with multidisciplinary teams. During my time at Microsoft I got to work with engineers, designers, data engineers, data scientists and product managers and this experience taught me a lot on how to work with cross-functional teams.
