OneDrive Home: For You
Role
Design Lead
Problem Statement
Surfacing file recommendations in Home will help users get to their relevant content faster, bringing time-sensitive, relevant files to their fingertips.
User Goals
Find files quickly so I can be efficicent
Stay on top of important updates to files that I’m working on.
Work on a file with other teammates at the same time so that we can feel better aligned and connected.
Measures of Success
Overall OneDrive Web metrics
Time to file
Session success rate
Feature-specific metrics
Recommendations CTR (Click through rate)
Page performance
FPS (Feature Promoter Score)
Research Findings
Collaborating with the Office Research Team, I uncovered key insights while exploring card design. While prototypes show ‘complete’ information—perfect previews and well-organized categories—the real world is less predictable. AI-generated previews can be flawed, and inconsistent tool usage affects recommendations. These findings underscored the importance of designing with variability in mind.
Using insights from office research, I designed initial explorations for the card designs in the "For You" section. This research informed my approach, ultimately leading to user testing. The results revealed that most customers preferred option C, citing its thumbnails and compactness as key factors. They felt that this design offered the best balance between screen real estate and usefulness.
Sketching Insights from User Research
Following the user research insights, I created a series of sketches to explore various design options for the card interface. These explorations were informed by the preference for option C, focusing on thumbnails and compactness. Above is a showcase several of these sketches that illustrate the evolution of my design process.
Final Card Design
The final card design will demonstrate that, despite the lack of a detailed document preview, the card remains both actionable and informative. This approach ensures users can engage effectively with the content, maintaining usability and clarity.
The Result
The implemented feature significantly improved our time to file and led to a 10% increase in the number of files opened on the home page. Additionally, these cards are now an integral part of our larger card design ecosystem, utilized across OneDrive, Teams, and Outlook.