Before COVID-19, we were all working and collaborating in person. When the pandemic hit, the script flipped, Teams shifted its focus on enhancing the remote work experience, allowing people to work from the comfort of their own home, making it the norm today.
Being on the Devices team, we took this opportunity to reimagine the hybrid work experience, utilizing and optimizing the space and high-tech equipment in the office. This includes but not limited to devices such as 85” touch displays, 8” touch consoles, AI-powered cameras and speakers.
Most of my work and process at Microsoft is protected under an NDA, please reach out if you want to learn more! For now, you can see a high-level showcase of some of the features I worked on to help people find the value and excitement in collaborating in office again.
Since Microsoft announced its AI assistant, Copilot, our team has been brainstorming ways to make it even more valuable and helpful in a meeting setting. I am leading the design efforts to bring Team Copilot to Meeting Room devices, where it listens to participants' discussion, and take notes for them to access later on.
Since this project is still ongoing, there are parts of the project that I am not able to share yet. In the meantime, check out this announcement videos of the feature at the 2024 Microsoft Build Conference!
When I first joined the team, the app was going through a design and code revamp. I took the opportunity to audit the inconsistencies and created a new framework for the out-of-meeting experience.
The home experience is the first thing users see when they enter a meeting room. We spent a lot of time polishing the visuals and UX to provide clear information and easy access to apps to help people work more efficiently.
The meeting experience is our bread and butter as it’s the most essential functionality of Teams Rooms. While we inherit a lot of features from Teams desktop and mobile to keep the interface and UX consistent, we also looked for opportunities to optimize the meeting experience for devices.
The Surface Hub is a wall-mounted or roller-stand mounted touch device that comes in both 50” and 85”. It was mainly designed to be a large digital whiteboard that lets people collaborate in shared spaces.
Taking advantage of this, we decided to bring the Teams Room experience to the Surface Hub, making it the first touch board that runs Teams Rooms on Windows.
Designing for a large touch display like this has its specifications and considerations. Working with the team, we made sure to test and design with accessibility in mind. For example, having a minimum touch target size and ensuring touch elements are at a reachable height.
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While the primary task is to bring over the existing Teams Rooms app to Surface Hub, the current experience has a lot of patterns and a framework that isn't suitable for a 50" or 85" touch display that could be set up differently based on the room, such as being on wheels, or mounted on a wall.
Working closely with my PM partner, we developed a framework utilizing different components in our design system, such as side panel, dialogs that show up in the middle, and flyout menus that appear right above the control bar at the bottom of the screen.
Combining the latest Teams Rooms features with the iconic Surface Hub 2S design and premium hardware, we're providing users with a natural experience for enhanced collaboration.
The home screen experience allows you to join a scheduled meeting via a quick One-Touch join. In addition, users can quickly get started with one of the action buttons: Meet now, call, share content, start a Whiteboard, join a meeting with an ID, and more.
Surface Hub will inherit all the existing and any new upcoming functionalities on Teams Rooms devices. Including layouts like Front Row, showing Chat and Raised hands panels, and more.
Whiteboard is one of the biggest use case on Teams Rooms touch devices, it allows users to walk up to a screen, open up a MS Whiteboard and start inking. People can also escalate the Whiteboard session into a meeting and invite other remote users to join the collaboration.
Our team works on devices that run different operating systems, and range from 8” touch consoles to 21:9 TV displays. When I first joined the team, I was tasked to create a component library to establish consistency and efficiency. The library inherits from our core Fluent design system that defines basic colours, typography, and shared components. I then crafted devices-specific components, ensuring elements are accessible, touch-friendly and have the appropriate interaction states. I also defined and documented the usage and differences in Windows and Android components.
As the team continues to innovate and onboard new devices, more maintenance will be necessary. I will be doubling down on the component library, working with engineers to create a cohesive source of truth to accelerate the design and development process.
As the owner of the component library, I also took on the role as an Accessibility Champ, representing the team to review accessibility approvals.
Our team is continuously listening to user feedback and iterating upon them. So far, I've shipped features that's been brought to over 1 million Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hub 2S devices all over the world. I also built the upselling experience for the Pro room license and Premium features, maximizing the B2B growth opportunities to reach >60% of industry leaders.
The Devices team is constantly evolving as we continue to innovate and ideate with our partners, to come up with new solutions to improve hybrid work. I’ve learned so much about designing for cross-platform devices and considering the opportunities and constraints of physical interactions with the interface. I am currently working on more upcoming exciting features, stay tuned!
