Outlook Change Management
Before this project, IT Admins would either accept or decline the feature when Outlook shipped a new feature. However, it would not just be one feature; it could be multiple features, across all the Office apps, with little to no notice.
Outlook's "Coming Soon" feature aimed to minimize the disruption of our new features and improve IT Admins' change management experience. We created a solution to allow customers to opt-in to our new and upcoming features on their own time and provide them with an outlet to share their comments and concerns.
The duration of the project from research to launch was six months. I was the lead designer and worked with researchers, program managers, and engineers to ship Coming Soon to Outlook. When it succeeded in Outlook, the rest of Microsoft Office worked to implement the feature.
Team: Donna Seo (Lead Designer), Brandon Haist (Researcher), David Gorelik (Program Manager), Diana Slaba (Engineer), Patricia Eddy (Support Program Manager)
Fast Company · 3 brilliant design details from the new Microsoft Office
I joined researchers for two weeks in Europe, touring multiple external companies, listening to Outlook customers talk about change management, and understanding how customers feel about Outlook’s change management experience. Overall, IT Admins spend a bulk of their time managing the repercussions of poorly shipped features.
“Customers want to feel three sensations when working with business tools: productive, in control, and safe. And they want to avoid two feelings: inadequacy and uncertainty.”
Coming Soon creates more awareness and early exposure for upcoming features. It provides our customers the freedom to opt-in to changes on their own time and direct channels to share feedback. Then we gather feedback and make the appropriate changes to validate our customers that we are listening to them.
We shared the user flow back and forth with IT Admins, end-users, program managers, engineers, and Outlook stakeholders. We designed, evaluated, and repeated this process through the core steps of Coming Soon. First, we needed to understand what parts were good or not ideal. Once we nailed the flow, we started creating the look and feel of the experience.
Designing with Our Customers
After customer interviews, card sorting exercises, and a design sprint, we found a viable change management solution addressing our customer’s pain points:
Previewing new features on their time
Identifying changes
Formal documentation
Walking through the updates
Outlet for feedback
Ultimately, the team decided to ship a quicker, more cost-efficient solution to the product while still delivering on the core requirements that our customer has adamantly expressed. As a result, the designs altered to reuse existing components such as in-app teaching call-outs and the Help pane.
More importantly, Coming Soon is a huge success. Our customers are happy with being able to preview upcoming features. The control and timing are in their hands with ample notice. Coming Soon will now be adopted across Office.