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Streamlining the onboarding experience to Microsoft 365 services
M365 FastTrack offers self-service tools, guides, and support to help IT admins onboard and adopt Microsoft 365 services with ease. However, the existing landing page struggled to meet the growing demand for self-serve guidance.
In response, I led the redesign of the landing page to better address user needs by providing personalized, step-by-step onboarding experiences. This effort improved navigation, usability, and overall efficiency in helping users adopt M365 services more effectively.
In response, I led the redesign of the landing page to better address user needs by providing personalized, step-by-step onboarding experiences. This effort improved navigation, usability, and overall efficiency in helping users adopt M365 services more effectively.
Impacts and Work highlights
- Conducted an audit of the existing experience and developed design solutions to improve navigation and usability.
- Ran usability testing rounds to validate design concepts and gather feedback for improvements
- Introduced personalized experiences to guide IT admins through service adoption based on their organization’s unique needs.
Outcomes
- 3x increase in customer base and resubscribing customers after redesign.
- Added 30+ additional self-serve guidance while implementing UI improvements for a more streamlined and user-friendly experience.
- Scalable design: The new structure made it easy to add more guides, ensuring future flexibility without needing major changes.
- Organized experience: The redesign made navigation simpler, helping users find relevant content faster, leading to higher goal completion and increased clicks.
- Consistent experience: Aligning with Microsoft’s design language created a seamless and cohesive user experience, improving conversions and usage rates.
ℹ️ Below is summary of the design, and I’m happy to share more detailed progress upon request.
📧 Contact me: hwak26@gmail.com
📧 Contact me: hwak26@gmail.com
Problem
In 2020, the team prioritized self-serve guides as the central feature of the landing page to improve the usefulness of the service.
However, as the number of available guides expanded, concerns about usability surfaced, prompting the need for a more scalable solution.
However, as the number of available guides expanded, concerns about usability surfaced, prompting the need for a more scalable solution.
Opportunities
Through heuristic evaluations and mapping the customer journey of the existing landing page, we uncovered key insights that guided our design improvements.
We launched Landing Page V1 to enhance navigation, V2 to introduce personalized experiences, and V3 for further iterations and optimizations.
We launched Landing Page V1 to enhance navigation, V2 to introduce personalized experiences, and V3 for further iterations and optimizations.
Research
Before diving into the project, I initiated research to gain a clear understanding of the current user experience. I led a workshop with the product team to map out the customer journey and evaluate the existing workflow. Additionally, I conducted a heuristic evaluation and shared insights with stakeholders.
This collaborative effort helped resolve initial uncertainties, establish a clear project direction, define goals, set priorities, and identify target users while uncovering previously overlooked user pain points.
The four key problems identified were information overload, lack of hierarchy, too many options, and inconsistent design. All of these issues shared a common theme: Users were struggling to navigate the services on the landing page effectively.
This collaborative effort helped resolve initial uncertainties, establish a clear project direction, define goals, set priorities, and identify target users while uncovering previously overlooked user pain points.
The four key problems identified were information overload, lack of hierarchy, too many options, and inconsistent design. All of these issues shared a common theme: Users were struggling to navigate the services on the landing page effectively.
Design
V1: Streamlining navigation
With the design goal set to improve navigation, my first focus was on creating a more organized experience. The challenge was to make it easier for users to understand the available resources and navigate through them effortlessly.
The key design changes are:
The key design changes are:
- Introduced tabs to break the page into manageable sections, reducing browsing time.
- Organized self-serve guides into specific subcategories with a nested list layout, helping users filter out irrelevant information and declutter the screen.
- Added search and filter features to allow users to quickly narrow down results and find relevant guidance more efficiently.
- Implemented count annotations and suggestions to enhance user engagement and direct users to the most relevant resources.
V2: Offering Personalization
After successfully launching the first version, I collaborated with the team to create a new vision focused on a personalized landing page experience. Our goal was to provide tailored guidance based on user workflows and task completion, making it easier for users to access the self-service guides relevant to their needs.
The product team provided a roadmap for this personalized approach, and I developed designs and functionality to align with that vision.
To validate the concept, I partnered with another designer to conduct user testing. We interviewed six participants, observing how they interacted with the personalized landing page to gain insights into their thoughts on the customized experience.
The product team provided a roadmap for this personalized approach, and I developed designs and functionality to align with that vision.
To validate the concept, I partnered with another designer to conduct user testing. We interviewed six participants, observing how they interacted with the personalized landing page to gain insights into their thoughts on the customized experience.
V3: Providing users with a focused experience
In 2022, I revisited the FastTrack landing page to identify areas for improvement. I found that the page was long and overloaded with information, potentially overwhelming users and making it difficult for them to focus on tasks. To address this, I explored different layout options to create a more focused experience, making it easier for users to find the information they needed while enhancing satisfaction and engagement.
After conducting another usability test, we implemented a fixed side navigation, allowing users to focus on individual categories for a more streamlined experience.
After conducting another usability test, we implemented a fixed side navigation, allowing users to focus on individual categories for a more streamlined experience.
