Responsible for sending system update communications to the whole company.
Wants full control over what goes out, and a workflow they can rely on.
← All work
Microsoft 365 · Enterprise admin · 2022
Organizational Messages: helping IT reach every employee
IT admins had no trusted way to reach employees inside Microsoft 365. Working with three PMs, I led the 0-to-1 design of Organizational Messages, a feature now used by 10,000+ organizations.
My roleLead UX designer, 0 to 1IA, flows, visuals, research
Team3 PMs, content, engineeringPlus a UX researcher
Timeline6 months, 2022Public preview 2022, GA 2023
Reach10K+ organizationsAcross Microsoft 365
The problem
IT admins had no trusted way to reach employees inside Microsoft 365, so important updates were getting missed.
What I did
Working with three PMs, I led the 0-to-1 design: the information architecture, the creation flow, management dashboards, reporting, and usability testing.
The result
10K+organizations adopted it after general availability
4 of 5usability testers rated it highly intuitive
On timeMVP shipped despite a tight timeline and unclear scope
The problem
Important updates were getting missed
Teams posts and email were easy to miss and hard to target, so onboarding tips and policy changes often went unread.
How might we
Help admins create, send, and track company-wide messages without worrying about getting it wrong?
Who it’s for
IT admins often work alone, and mistakes are costly
Double-checks every setting to avoid mistakes.
Needs to know messages reach the right people.
The work is repetitive and mostly done alone, and mistakes are seen by everyone.
Research
What admins need to do
We audited five competing tools and interviewed stakeholders. An admin’s work breaks into four steps.
01
Create
Tailor content, layout, and targeting by department, role, or region.
02
Schedule and send
Preview, then deliver at the right time, including recurring messages.
03
Manage
View, edit, pause, or cancel a message at any point in its life.
04
Analyze
See delivery and engagement, and spot problems fast.
How I led it
Getting a new team aligned
We had a tight timeline, unclear scope, complicated permission rules, and a team that had just formed.
01
Define and align
I mapped the IA and user flows for creation, management, and reporting, then ran a workshop to pin down scope.
02
Cut what we didn’t need
I worked across PMs, content, and engineering to decide what to cut so the first release stayed simple.
03
Fill the gaps
Beyond UX, I covered content design, visual design, research, and edge-case QA so the MVP could ship on time.
The solution
Three design moves
01
A guided creation flow
Admins pick an objective, then see exactly where the message will appear across Microsoft 365 while they set content and audience.
02
One place to manage
Management and tracking live together, with a details panel so admins can double-check before anything goes out.
03
Reports admins can act on
Interactive charts for impressions, clicks, and click-through help admins spot delivery issues and trace them to a message.
Testing
What five admins taught us
I wrote the test script with a UX researcher and ran semi-structured video interviews with five internal users. 4 of 5 rated the interface highly intuitive, and their feedback drove five changes.
- 01Easier to get aroundThe first landing page was three big entry cardsTop actions and the message list on one page
- 02Double-checking mattersAdmins wanted to verify before sendingA details panel to review every message
- 03Pictures explain betterPlacement options were hard to picture in wordsIllustrated previews of each placement
- 04Working in bulkOne message at a time didn’t scaleMulti-select with rename, cancel, clone, and archive
- 05Clearer componentsObjective cards needed stronger hierarchyRefined cards, later adopted into the admin design system
In their words
From my Microsoft team
She worked closely with PMs and devs to translate their requirements into high quality designs. She was inclusive, listening to their POV and feedback, and incorporating it into her work. While doing this she was very mindful of our design system and applied it with a detailed eye.
Aaron WooPrincipal Product Design Director, MicrosoftShe has experience in wrangling nebulous projects and keeping them on-track. Partners appreciate her ability to communicate about designs in ways that they understand and can interact with.
Carrie CosgroveSenior Product Designer, Microsoft
What I took away
What I learned
Work with what you have
Timing was never perfect and we never had everything we needed, so I worked with what we had.
Give the team something to react to
When scope was unclear, I ran a workshop and sketched the flows so the team had something concrete to discuss.
Every message lands on someone’s screen
Admins want to reach everyone, but employees don’t want more noise, so the design had to respect both.
