Accelerate and simplify application development with serverless compute

2019-present

When I first started working on Azure Functions, they had not had a researcher for a while, so a lot of tactical research needed to be done. I ran usability studies on the Azure Functions experience in the Azure portal, which kicked off a redesign effort to refresh the UI and fix the usability issues that were discovered. Many more quick studies were needed as part of the iterative design process, until in February 2020 the new experience was released and received a great response from our customers.

Once I had cleared some of the urgent tactical research needs, I ran several strategic research projects to help us understand our customers' end-to-end journey and their pain points and blockers along the way, as well as research into Functions adoption funnel to support the ongoing growth hacking efforts. Part of that strategic research happened at our annual IT conference, Microsoft Ignite, in several focus groups I ran on different topics. These focus groups were a great way to get the engineering team and the customers together and discuss customer needs and get feedback on product plans.

Quickly build powerful integration solutions without writing a single line of code

2019-present

Logic Apps is one of the most interesting products I have worked on. Its visual, low-code workflow experience takes me back to my dissertation on visual programming in CAD systems.
Logic Apps allows IT architects to integrate multiple services using a node-link diagram in an interface called Workflow Designer. I ran many studies on the usability of Designer and discovered that the experience can use a revamp. We are now in the process of releasing a new experience with modern design and improved usability of workflows.

As part of this research we tested the affordability of the different node designs to make sure users would know where to click to collapse and expand workflow branches. I did this research using a remote unmoderated research method and was able to provide the team with detailed findings that helped design a great experience for Logic Apps Designer.

Create and deploy mission-critical web applications that scale with your business

2019-present

Azure App Service is one of the most used Azure services and comprises of several experiences, including Web Apps, Domains, and Certificates. I have run several benchmark usability studies on these services that revealed experience problems that needed to be addressed. Below is an example of App Service Domain "create" experience that went from a disjointed, legacy UI to a newly designed full-screen experience that is more consistent with the rest of the Azure portal and doesn't have any of those usability issues.

In addition, we recently released the new Azure Static Web App Service during Microsoft's annual developer conference, Build 2020, which was a great success for the team and the company. This service allows developers to quickly deploy their static sited to azure and was received very well by the front end developer community.

Remote management tool for Windows Server running anywhere

2016-2018

Windows Admin Center was the first product I worked on when I joined Microsoft and was my gateway into the IT and developer space. I can't believe how much I had to learn to get going. But I enjoyed every minute of it and was quickly able to establish a 2-week research cadence and get fast, iterative feedback on ongoing and completed designs. I was with that product from early on all the way to General Availability and felt very proud when it shipped and enabled our customers to easily manage their servers from anywhere in any browser. The above image shows our booth in an IT conference and me doing ad-hoc research with IT admins.

One of the most interesting things I did was running a diary study to try to understand how our customer use Windows Admin Center and when and where they are forced to use other tools and services to manage servers. Through this longitudinal research and a follow up quantitative survey, I was able to provide the team with a prioritized list of missing features and functionalities to focus on after the product was shipped.