Establish and document guidelines for tasks at Microsoft.
Microsoft Task Ecosystem
Context
Many Office apps partner with Planner to power their in-product task workflows. Using the Planner service allows these teams to take advantage of existing task functionality, but multiple brands in the same workflow often leads to choppy user experiences. Planner started transitioning into a task service rather than an individual, branded product in these contexts. Customers loved the idea of a seamless task experience across O365, and we realized there was a need to establish Microsoft-wide ecosystem. Planner had an opportunity to lead that task coherence effort.
Structure
I led an effort to establish the Microsoft Task Ecosystem, a set of guidelines for a coherent task experience across Microsoft. I partnered with PMs, designers, researchers and engineers across multiple products over the course of a year to assemble the first set of task ecosystem documentation. This included UX guidelines, task principles, user profiles and workflows for teams to follow.
A common cross-product task experience:
Audiences
Core task apps
To Do, Planner and Project are the three task apps at Microsoft. As the resident experts, they define the ideal task experience. It’s important for these apps to learn from each other and be on the same page in order for the ecosystem to have any credibility.
Task integration partners
Integration partners are Office apps that use a core task app to support their task workflows. For example, Word partners with Planner to support document tasks. By establishing task guidelines, it’s easier for integration partners to onboard to tasks and build coherent experiences.
Task customers
Customers won’t ever see these internal guidelines, but setting the groundwork for a coherent task experience ultimately provides a better experience for them. They want a simpler task solution, and this is the first step.
Step 1: Gain Context
Audit all task experiences
I looked at ten apps around Microsoft and documented the task-related language, icons, interactions, colors, main user profiles and core workflows of each. This was the first time everyone could actually look at the task ecosystem all-up, and compare experiences side-by-side.
Synthesize and resolve
I proposed solutions to differences between app experiences and worked with partner teams to gain agreement on the components that would make or break a coherent system.
Brand a cross-org effort
It was important to keep this effort app-agnostic to help people think beyond product lines. This effort was branded the “Microsoft Task Ecosystem,” something that all apps had a voice in shaping.
Step 2: Establish Structure
Document universal task lifecycle
Defining a universal task lifecycle helped standardize and organize workflows across apps. This provided clarity on which apps focused on various parts of the lifecycle; endpoints like docs focus mostly on in-context capture, and other endpoints like Planner focus mostly on prioritizing, executing and updating.
Define universal user profiles
We condensed a variety of personas into two universal user profiles: Coordinators and Contributors. Standardizing these groups and their characteristics facilitated more productive discussions about core workflows across products.
Interview users
We partnered with researchers to set up a community of customers who fit these profiles in order to validate their needs and test new concepts.
Step 3: Put it all together
Author comprehensive doc
I put together docs that contained guidance on user profiles, workflows, UX principles, language, voice, icons and components. The doc differentiated strict requirements for aligning to the system, versus recommendations that could be adjusted to their specific context.
Assemble design libraries
In order to make it as easy as possible to apply these guidelines, I assembled a “core task components” library for designers to grab from.
Present & share
I presented this doc to multiple audiences including designers, PMs, engineers and researches across our partner products. The intent was for this doc to be a living document that people can evolve over time.
Step 4: Implement!
Organize design sprint around core workflow
I helped run a cross-team design sprint based on the universal profiles and organized according to the core task lifecycle. This groundwork actively structured our product strategy going forward.
Rebuild components in shared way
We started building shared components - for example, new attachments and checklists features in Project will be the same ones used in Planner to ensure coherence between the two products.
Consult for new task experiences
Instead of continuing to build new, independent task experiences, these docs helped teams build off of existing task work. I met with Fluid, Teams team, word team and To Do to talk about how to build new features in a way that’s coherent with the ecosystem.
Successes
We have a set of design libraries, core personas, and workflows that To Do, Teams and Planner all agree on. Standardizing our languages has already made collaboration more seamless.
Learnings
Prioritizing style updates against new features is a challenge for teams. We found success in implementing a lot of these changes alongside feature updates, instead of as their own items.