WINDOWS APP STORE / CUSTOMER FEEDBACK




Windows Store App Publishing Platform.
Microsoft was feeling pressure from Apple regarding their App Store. Microsoft made the business pivot to modernize its own Windows OS and build an App Store to compete with Apple. I was hired to be on the Windows 8 design team and relocated to WA.

Lead UX designer for the first public release of the Windows 8 App Store publishing platform. Responsible for adopting the Metro Design language and many core feature e2e experiences.

The Experience Design Research (XDR) team’s core responsibility was modernizing Microsoft Windows OS. Each designer had a researcher counterpart to conduct deep customer research and to validate a scenario. Designers would prototype an experience, and research would bring customers into mirrored, fully furnished rooms with eye-tracking software. Within 5-10 customer interviews, I would receive a full breakdown analysis report. Viewing and listing customers talk about the experience gained valuable insights. One of Windows’ principles was “Change is bad unless it’s great.” We used this principle to move forward with development

APP ONBOARDING PAGES
Responsible for shipping the app submission onboarding workflow pages to publish a Windows Store App for free or a paid download.



Customer Feedback Feature — From the App Store, a customer could have two-way conversations with the App Developer by allowing the customer to send a private message. The goal was to help developers improve the quality of the App. I prototyped the idea and pitched this leadership as an innovation to improve product experience.

The Insights – From my own experience publishing Oscar’s Adventure as an early adopter, I received a few negative comments. I would have liked to be able to respond to customer feedback.

· Reduce the amount of negative app feedback shown in the app store.
· Reduce the perception of poor Windows App Store becoming a bug triage location.


The concept – In the Windows App store, a customer can communicate directly with the developer and get real-time customer feedback under Ratings and Reviews. From working with researches this made me think of could this be done through software.

Problem Statement – The Windows App shell/SDK (tech stack) was still in early development, causing Apps to crash, which wasn’t necessarily the developer’s fault. App crashes were hard to test in the production world since Windows was in private beta mode, thus driving customers to write public feedback through ratings and reviews.

Business Partnership
Due to the number of images and time I could spend on the application, I orchestrated an advertising partnership with dreamstime.com. In exchange, I had full access to their entire illustration library. I also gave them splash screen advertising throughout each game transition. This was a significant business deal and a win-win for both parties.

Taking Initiative
While working on the App developer publishing platform, I was curious about publishing my Windows app and better understanding the customer pain points. I contacted a developer, and we agreed to build Oscar’s Adventure, a children’s learning app for ages 3-6. We successfully designed, built, and published the app in less than a month. The process helped me understand the customer journey, enabling me to influence product decisions since I was a customer.

Oscar Sketches – Some early concept sketches of Oscar the Otter to the final .svg variations.





WINDOWS OS – DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION


WINDOWS – Metro Design Language
When I was on the Windows Design Team (XDR), the team was on a mission to re-image every customer touchpoint digitally for the Windows OS and Web Apps. Part of the team’s responsibility was to introduce the Windows 8 Design Principles and Metro Design Language as the foundational building blocks to modernize the system patterns, and I was able to leverage the UI Kit library elements for the Windows Developer Platform.

The Vision
Through consolidation, Microsoft can build an App Store marketplace by supporting various technology platforms. A newly re-imaged App dev center could onboard Windows XAML apps, Xbox, Win32, Web Apps, and Android through a unified ingestion pipeline.

The Insights
Apple leads the industry with great design, and the Windows organization was pressured to attract the cool kids back to stay relevant. The chatter is that if Apple allowed its OS system to be installed on any PC hardware (hypothetically), how detrimental could this be to Microsoft’s Windows OS cash machine?

The Beginning – Design Challenge
When I joined the Windows App Store team, a product manager from the India Development Center (IDC) presented me with a PowerPoint concept deck showing the dashboard. I spent the next few years art directing and influencing product decisions while working with the remote team.