Microsoft Office Division Evolution

Designing Microsoft's transition from desktop productivity to connected work

Across Work Essentials, Office Live, and Office 365, I designed and prototyped task-centered experiences—from connected resources and collaboration to administration flow and IA.

Explore the case studyView artifact index
Office Live Business Network concept showing a Variable Compensation Calculator with community reviews, related resources, team information, and a personalized workspace.
A preserved Office Live Business Network concept connecting a business resource with community knowledge and a personalized workspace.

Challenge

Make Microsoft's growing set of connected services easier to understand and act on.

Contribution

Designed and prototyped task-centered experiences; owned Office 365 administration flow, information architecture, and executive vision.

Evidence / outcome

Preserved walkthroughs, prototypes, and usability evidence document the direction; they do not prove a full-product launch.

FEATURED EVIDENCE

Highlights

A quick scan of the moments that best explain the problem, the pivot, and the payoff.

01 · Office Online / Work Essentials

Start with the work, not the application

Quentin's role grew from tutorial-video storyboards and artwork into task-centered interaction concepts, including Win32 add-ins and the Segmented Demo Player. Work Essentials organized templates, training, demonstrations, and lightweight solutions around recurring information-worker tasks—rather than asking people to start with an Office application.

Microsoft Office Work Essentials title screen with the office.microsoft.com/workessentials address.
A focused subweb inside Office OnlineWork Essentials lived within office.microsoft.com and organized guidance around practical information-worker needs.
Office Online Work Essentials page organizing guidance, training, templates, and demonstrations around workplace needs.
Resources organized around the workTemplates, articles, training, and demonstrations were grouped around business tasks instead of individual application boundaries.
Work Essentials sales forecasting solution organized around a business task, related templates, guidance, and supporting resources.
Sales forecasting as a complete work contextResources and tools were gathered around one business goal rather than an application boundary.

02 · Office Live Business Network vision

Connect discovery, peer knowledge, and tools to the work

Assigned the Blue Sky Vision, Quentin worked from Community and Web 2.0 input from two subject-matter experts to design concepts and mocks, create the animated hand interaction, and build the Flash demonstration. A developer supported the interactive hand behavior, and Quentin presented the prototype with a program manager. The walkthrough and stills record a design direction—not a claim that every element shipped.

From discovering a resource to working with itThe walkthrough connects role-based solutions, community knowledge, communication, and direct manipulation in one work surface.Edited historical walkthrough · 1:14 · no audio required

Supporting evidence

Office Live Business Network resource page for a Variable Compensation Calculator with reviews and related resources.
Search as the beginning of workA resource page combined a business tool, reviews, recommendations, related material, and collaborators in one working context.
Advanced community review filters beside a Variable Compensation Calculator artifact.
Community knowledge inside the workflowAdvanced review filters treated experience from other people as decision support rather than a separate community destination.
Community portal favorites page with feeds, templates, people, articles, and a personalized workspace.
Personalization and reusable workspacesFavorites, feeds, templates, people, and products could be collected into a reusable working surface.
Sales management community forum with topics, ratings, and participant activity.
Collaboration around work objectsForums and ratings brought questions, answers, and shared practice closer to the task being completed.
Community portal article with ratings, comments, related posts, and workspace actions.
From discovering a resource to acting on itKnowledge could move from discovery into comments, recommendations, and practical next steps.

03 · Office Live Workspace

From finding resources to coordinating work

Quentin contributed to Office Live Small Business through the HOME/SHELL redesign and Configurator prototype/testing, then to Workspace future-state concepts with the technical fellow. The selected Workspace screens provide project context; they are not a claim that Quentin individually designed every surviving screen or that Workspace directly followed Blue Sky.

Office Live Workspace concept showing shared workspaces, recent activities, document lists, and people coordination.
A shared operating surfaceDocuments, workspaces, people, and activity became parts of one coordination experience.
Office Live Workspace Community question and answer experience.
Questions around the workCommunity answers helped people move forward without leaving the product context.
Office Live Workspace Community sign-in and account entry experience.
Identity at the boundaryParticipation introduced account, access, and continuity questions that grew more important in later service work.

04 · Microsoft Online Services / Office 365

Turn complex service setup into a guided path

The design problem moved from individual work to organizations making decisions across services, identity, licensing, migration, trials, and administration.

With a program manager, two user researchers, a CSG designer, and input from roughly seven to eight product managers, I owned the end-to-end flow, information architecture, and executive vision across discovery, setup, migration, and service handoffs. The architecture was intended to support 30+ services.

01 · Setup path

Choose services

Begin by establishing the online services an organization needs.

My approximately 114-page executive vision led to a large interactive Blend/SketchFlow prototype co-developed with a contractor developer-designer. I maintained the flow, sitemap coverage, and experience fidelity while the contractor handled much of the heavier implementation; visual execution was shared. The cross-functional vision work received a Microsoft Gold Star Award. These artifacts document a direction and prototype, not proof that the full concept shipped.

Historical concept sequence · representative design work from the period

Prototype entry

Explore the reconstructed Office 365 administration prototype

The original Blend/SketchFlow prototype was co-developed: Quentin owned flow, sitemap coverage, and experience fidelity while a contractor developer-designer handled much of the heavier implementation. This modern browser reconstruction preserves that interaction vision for review; it is not original production code or proof that every screen shipped.

Explore the prototype

Preserved reconstruction · interaction vision · guided exploration

Reflection

Test the assumptions, not just the interface

Usability testing taught me to treat uncertainty as design input. When participants hesitated or said something felt wrong, I learned to ask why rather than defend the work.

That practice still guides me: design with conviction, then test the assumptions underneath it.