Microsoft

2014 - 2016, 2024

After obtaining my graduate degrees, I quickly found myself as a vendor UX Researcher at Microsoft. I joined the Windows and Devices Group about half a year before the launch of Windows 10, being exposed to all sorts of methodologies and unique products. Eventually, I joined the Surface team to work on the Surface Pen just as the Apple Pencil launched.

Windows 10 Start Menu

In the run-up to the launch of Windows 10, I was tasked with conducting formative research on a planned switch from the horizontal scrolling start menu in Windows 8 and 8.1 to a vertical scrolling version. As Windows 10 was a direct upgrade, all of a user’s existing apps would be retained, including their custom start menu layouts.

The design team was unsure how to translate app groupings and layouts from horizontal to vertical in a way that best matched user’s mental models.

I created a study plan to use paper cutouts of participant’s current Windows 8 start menus and ask them to reassemble their optimal layouts vertically.

Surprisingly, users who were highly invested in their custom layouts and those who stuck with the defaults used the same algorithmic approach to translate from horizontal to vertical layouts. With such strong evidence, the design team adopted the translation algorithm we observed, and the start menu redesign in Windows 10 became one of the most lauded features at launch.

Windows 10 Native Apps - Core Usability Engine

After the launch of Windows 10, my role shifted to the Core Usability Engine team to focus on evaluative research. I conducted several dozen competitive benchmark studies on native Windows Apps and features over the course of half a year.

The breadth of software I had to familiarize myself with and thoroughly test was immense: Photos, Video, Music, Maps, Cortana, Xbox UI, Office products, Visual studio, etc. Each study required immense levels of preparation, task management, and plans for resets in between sessions.

At times, I was completing an entire benchmark study in one week that would usually take multiple months. Teams requesting benchmarks relied on the study results to help determine post-launch planning and prioritization.

To be successful, I needed to vastly improve the efficiency of completing repetitive studies. I leveraged my background in statistics to help optimize data analysis after completing study sessions by creating scripts in R and templates in Excel. By creating reporting standards and templates, I helped stakeholders to quickly absorb the most important findings while also empowering the research team to focus on expressing valuable insights rather than report structure.

By December of 2015, the research team had grown both in size and profile and began working on an even wider array of products. As a vendor researcher, I was honored to be selected to test certain native apps on Microsoft Hololens while it was still a highly classified project.

Microsoft Edge Browser

During my time on the Core Usability Engine team, I was tasked with conducting iterative benchmark studies on the early stages of the Edge browser (code-named Spartan at the time).

Google Chrome had become the leading browser experience and early research indicated users valued browsing speed highly. The primary goal for the Edge team was to create the perception of a speedy browsing experience through minimalistic design aesthetic and streamlined features.

I drafted study plans to test both isolated tasks as well as free-form browsing experiences across Internet Explorer, Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari (on Mac). By capturing objective data on time on task and error rates as well as self-reported perceived speeds and ease of use, I discovered a contradiction.

Users performed tasks objectively faster on the Edge browser, but consistently rated Google Chrome as the speedier browsing experience warranting further investigation. After additional research focused on the perception of the minimalistic design and branding, Spartan rebranded to Microsoft Edge.

At launch, Edge compared favorably to contemporary browsers, eventually replacing Internet Explorer entirely.

Microsoft Surface - Hardware

I joined the Microsoft Surface team late in 2015, coinciding with the launch of the Apple Pencil. As my first experience conducting research on hardware, I had to quickly learn the best practices in the field of Human Factors.

My initial role was to evaluate the Microsoft Surface 3 Pen, compare it to the Apple Pencil, and create a prioritized list of recommendations for the next generation of Surface Pen. I created test plans to evaluate different types of pen use mimicking writing and sketching, as well as testing compatibility within various apps.

While the Apple Pencil outperformed the Surface Pen in many ways associated with artistic use, the Surface Pen held the edge as a productivity tool. After consulting with stakeholders, my manager and I recommended not trying to compete with the Apple Pencil with the default Surface Pen, but rather consider creating an additional model tailored to artistic performance.

Due to my success conducting research for the Surface Pen, I was honored to be selected to test the first iteration of the Surface Studio while it was still a highly classified project. I helped moderate the first ever external study on the Surface Studio with a myriad of artists and industry professionals.