Other things chat
A broad stroke
Over the years, I’ve worked on a variety of projects within Microsoft Teams, primarily centered around messaging. My experience, including a brief stint at Skype, has given me a solid understanding of this space and a soft spot for it. Here's a splattering of projects I’ve contributed to, including some older ones that reflect my journey.
Compose 2023/24
45 billion messages a month, the most-used surface in Teams—the humble Compose. Research frequently highlighted Teams’ complexity, and Compose, burdened over time with numerous extensions underneath, was part of the problem. This sparked an effort to simplify Compose across chats and channels.
The result became a textbook example of a designer’s challenge: striking the right balance between user needs and business goals, while determining which actions to prioritize in a constrained space.
This change led to a ~2% increase in daily messages sent, with no significant drop in the usage of extensions relocated to the ‘everything else’ menu. While file attachment usage decreased, drag-and-drop actions increased. This taught me that sometimes, adding friction simplifies the experience.
Reply/Edit 2023
“Nobody’s complaining about it, why change it?” That was the response when I proposed moving the Reply (50 million MAU) and Edit (40 million MAU) actions from the overflow menu on a message to the hover menu. After months of convincing and a quick user testing study where people loved the idea, we gave it a shot! With positive feedback and increased usage of both actions, the change proved successful!
Forward message 2023
Forwarding messages—a seemingly basic feature but essential for any messaging platform. In Teams, it took us six years post-launch to prioritize this table stakes capability. After two years of intermittent work (it was deprioritized multiple times), we finally shipped it to an overwhelmingly positive response from users.
Some of the scoping discussions and decisions revolved around—forwarding to one chat vs. multiple, existing chats vs. new, and chats only vs. channels as well. A user testing study helped refine the specifics, particularly the design of the message preview in the dialog.
V1 supported forwarding only one message at a time. To keep the momentum going, I initiated explorations for V2—multiple message forwarding.
Schedule message 2023
We set out to extend the existing schedule message functionality from chat to channels. Along the way, I identified several opportunities to improve the current experience. After some convincing, we decided to make these improvements before rolling it out to channels. From introducing a more discoverable entry point to enabling scheduling in 1-minute increments (instead of 30-minute blocks), we implemented 12 thoughtful tweaks to enhance the experience. I also used this opportunity to better align the desktop and mobile interfaces.
Teams + Edge/Outlook/... 2022
Many partners within the Microsoft suite are eager to embed Teams chat into their products—a potential game-changer for the ecosystem. This integration enables users to start and continue conversations in context. For example,
- A web link in chat opens in Edge with the chat panel on the side for real-time discussion.
- Is an email thread dragging on? Start a chat with everyone on the email directly in Outlook.
- Need input on your deck? Collaborate with teammates in PowerPoint without leaving the app.
Contextual conversations become seamless and efficient.
Authentication 2021
If you’ve used a Microsoft product, you’ve likely encountered the less-than-ideal authentication process. All Microsoft products rely on a central team that manages authentication. While this ensures consistency across the suite, it comes at a cost: the experience is not tailored to individual apps, and the central team often lacks awareness of or attention to the specific needs of those apps. This results in a disjointed process, with users navigating through multiple, inconsistent windows.
This critical entry point—the front door to everything else—had been long overlooked. But as Teams shifted focus to consumer messaging, it became clear that a complete overhaul of the sign-in and sign-up experiences was necessary. After two years of working on constrained solutions for Teams, we began designing a scalable authentication experience that could meet the needs of the entire Microsoft suite.
Problems Principles
Multiple windows, disconnected, exposing our seams.
Seamless. Inline.
Different paths based on the type of user/account.
A single, consistent path.
Visual inconsistency through the flows.
No standard app branding across the suite.
Lacking visual alignment between mobile and desktop.
One Microsoft + [App] branded experience across platforms.
We proposed a three-step approach:
- Tactical, short-term improvements from a Teams-first perspective.
- A vision—a collection of unconstrained ideas and possibilities, the kind of work I love!
- Collaboration with Office, Windows, Xbox, and Identity to drive an authentication overhaul for all of Microsoft.
I would have loved to see this project through by collaborating with designers across Microsoft to create an experience that works seamlessly for the entire suite. However, due to a re-org, I handed it over to a fellow designer.
Chat, Windows 11 2021
We partnered with Windows to integrate Teams into Windows 11, resulting in a chat flyout in the taskbar designed to quickly connect users to their people. It was also a strategic move to bring Teams to a billion Windows users.
Does it achieve that goal? Not so well. A mix of competing interests, a misalignment with product realities, and a disregard for user research resulted in a solution I am not proud of. Users are forced into chats that pop out into separate windows, switching between the Chat app and Teams depending on their task. Unsurprisingly, this feature was sunset two years after launch.
Status 2021
I see great potential in the presence and status message features in Teams, but their underutilization has kept them a low priority for investment. I’ve been chipping away at a model that integrates presence (available, away, etc.), status messages, and out-of-office messages into a cohesive experience. Seamlessly and contextually communicating a user’s availability—whether in the present or the future—should feel effortless.
Account switcher 2020
Working with a partner team at Microsoft comes with its challenges, and collaborating with the central identity team on an account switcher for Teams—intended to be adopted across other Microsoft products—was no different. Their goal of creating a consistent experience across Microsoft is valuable but often clashes with the unique needs of individual apps, like Teams. Despite this, I believe we struck a good balance.
Steps towards a design system 2019
When the team was still small (pre-pandemic), we noticed inconsistencies in specific components. It made sense at the time, as we didn’t yet have a design system. A few of us decided to focus on the critical components in our space and create specs—mine were contextual menus and dialogs. Bringing all our work together planted the seeds for a design system. Working on this early initiative also highlighted that I needed to improve my attention to detail.
Contextual menu
These are heavily used in Teams—there are always options, and often too many of them. I know, not necessarily a good thing.
After completing the spec for these menus, the platform team raised a valid concern: the design pushed all 3rd party actions into a second level, negatively impacting their usage. Taking this feedback into account, I applied what I had learned while working on the spec to propose a new model. In this approach, three slots (of max. eight) in the first level are personalized based on frequency of use, ensuring that any 3rd party action critical to a specific user always appears in the first level.
Dialog
They’re perfect for many scenarios where context is crucial to completing a task, guiding users through a focused flow, surfacing errors, or announcing new features. You get it! But they can also be incredibly irritating. Nobody likes pop-ups—they demand your full attention, disrupting the experience.
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