Role
Program Manager Intern
Time
06/2021 - 10/2021
Team
SharePoint templates are designed to offer the site creators and editors a smoother site building experience. By vertical industries or horizontal functions, content and webparts are arranged in preset yet customizable layouts to serve how people utilize team sites or communication sites in their work.
I worked to conduct research and analyze testing results to validate user problems and scenarios and to support design explorations.
2 PMs, 1 researcher, 2 designers
Approach
Content and webparts are arranged in preset yet customizable layouts to serve how people utilize SharePoint sites in their work.
​
-
By vertical industry: retail, healthcare, nonprofit, etc.
-
By horizontal function: human resources, marketing, etc.
Research Methods
Card Sorting
​
Served for early-phase importance gathering. In a card sorting session, we presented a list of content components and asked participants to sort each component into three different categories – Extremely important, Somewhat important, and Not important.
​
We screened participants by checking they have related experiences in a given industry or function. With the collected results, designers were able to learn about the users’ preferences and prioritize template components accordingly in mockups.
UserTesting Survey
​
Ran to learn industrial scenarios and get design feedback. In a survey, participants were asked how they currently collaborate in work, how their organizations use SharePoint, how they lacked in communication and management, and etc. I went through all recordings and results to summarize industry-specific usage and issues. The key takeaways are used in PM and design discussion to decide template layouts.
​
Participants were also given design mockups to tell us how they perceived the site, what they thought as helpful, and what they wouldn’t need in work. I digested all feedback to make suggestions for designers to adjust the templates.
Customer Interview
​
Conducted for detailed feedback and usability testing. Interviewees elaborated on their scenarios and problems with SharePoint sites, and they performed actions on our designed pages by clicking through the prototypes. Interviews were especially helpful to dive deeper into the voices of customers who were from the targeted group.
Learnings
-
I learned that different types of research are used for different purposes at different design stages.
-
It was a holistic user research experience from designing screening questions, brainstorming card sorting lists, working with the content writer, digesting survey results, to providing direction for design iterations.
-
I felt rewarded when my analysis and takeaways could help optimize the experience of creating a SharePoint site.