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Microsoft Library

Microsoft Library is an internal tool for checking out books, audio materials, and courseware by full-time employees, contingent staff and employees of partner companies. The library materials range from business, data science, cloud computing, leadership, machine learning, growth mindset, etc. A total of four locations exist around the world with the main library in Redmond campus.




PLANNING & SCOPING

Our primary goal was to understand the end users and business needs. Business owner, UX PM, and the designer defined the timeline for design and user studies.

END USER INSIGHTS & IDEATION

Collaborate with the business owner and a UX PM produced insights that translated concepts and addressed user behaviors and motivations.

VISION & STRATEGY

Create frameworks, work with UX PM with user stories and prototypes to share the design vision with the business owner and engineer. Once the green light is a go, the user studies begin.

EXECUTION & VALIDATION

Together we create wireframes and validate with our business partner to ensure we are fulfilling the business requirements. Before we begin the study, we need to choose a research methodology and a clear idea about what we want to learn.


CHALLENGE

The challenge of MS Library that it is overwhelming and not user-friendly. Furthermore, the site has been created in SharePoint, and it has limitations on what you can and cannot do. There are inconsistencies on information/summary on books, way too many clicks for users, and the site is not following corporate guidelines.


Home page

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Top Navigation

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Books & E-Books

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Blog for MS Library Tools and Service Training

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REDESIGN GOALS

The design goals were to interview the end user to see how they would go about using the site and track the time it took them to complete the task from the end to end. Furthermore, we wanted to ensure that we were holistically viewing the problem and correctly prioritize the various goals such as people recommendations, waiting lists, and usability.

BUSINESS

Driving users to the website with good user experience is the primary goal of MSLibrary. The site should be simple, intuitive and focus on relevant contents.

USABILITY

Create a better browsing experience that allows users to navigate efficiently, ease of use and show relevant information.


Persona

This application targets two types of users and they are the primary users of this tool. The following personas helped us to redesign and prioritize users needs and goals.

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Frank Lane

I am not able to get to this book "Adapt by Tim Harford" Can you guys please help? Thanks.

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Jack Fredat

Can I renew this book online?

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Rosa Cruisy

Hi, I have requested for a book in MSLIbrary and I have been waiting list since then (Sept 25th and it is Oct 10th). Is there anyway to know when I can expect the book?

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Jane Clock

Like it seems to happen for many others, access to Economist information is broken for me. I used the info that mslibrary gave regarding how to access, but I still cannot access any articles!


usability

We interviewed a variety of users to understand their behavior/process to gain insight into their thoughts, feelings and pain points. This research helped us understand user behavior on the site and create content that makes the most sense to the users.

Information architecture

Navigation is unclear, overwhelming and information architecture makes the users frustrated. Furthermore, there are so many links on any given page, and they do not know where to proceed. For first-time users, they find it is intimidating, overwhelming and frustrating.


Design decisions & goals

Create a site that is less intimidating, organize information in an easily digestible manner and create a site in a grid format that allows flexibility for different types of data and applied to other pages on the site.

Prototyping E-books & Books

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Style Guide

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Responsive Grid

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Brand Colors exploration

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wireframes

Landing Page

Landing Page

Search Page

Search Page

E-Books Summary Page

E-Books Summary Page

Top Navigation

Top Navigation

Advance Search Page

Advance Search Page

Product Details Page

Product Details Page


takeaways

After two and a half weeks, the business decided to re-prioritize and the team was reorged. The project did not have enough funding and resources were allocated elsewhere. Like every project that comes and goes, I have learned a lot from user's behaviors, research and how businesses prioritize their needs and wants.

Personally, one of my biggest takeaways from this project is to make sure the business is being transparent on their timelines and understand the UX process in Agile. I need to ask more questions to make sure we are on track before keep ploughing forward.