User Groups
Microsoft
Microsoft Power Platform Communities is a forum outlet for existing and future users to discuss, learn, and network about Power Platform products. User Groups, which is a part of Communities, allows users to connect with each other through in person meetings, discover networking events, and learning seminars.
While User Groups is an integral part of the Community ecosystem, the lack of support and tools presented problems for users to easily achieve their goal.
Role: Product Designer
Team Roles:
Studio Lead
Producers
Content Designer
UX Researchers
Engineering
Product Designers
Problem
Although Communities is under the umbrella of Microsoft.com, User Groups is supported through a third-party company named DCI. Our goal was to tackle the integration of User Groups from a third-party owned experience (DCI) into the Microsoft Power Platform Community. In order to achieve our goal, we needed to establish user needs and user segments we are solving for, define what success is, and determine pain points.
Breaking mental modals
During our benchmark research, we discovered that users were failing to complete basic tasks.
For a paid service, DCI’s user experience for finding a user group relevant to you proved difficult. It heavily depended on a map search that was below the fold.
Initial User Feedback on DCI User Experience
“DCI has forums, but they’re terrible, period.”– Participant 5
“It feels like DCI is monetizing the community, which is disgusting, to be honest…[it’s for profit] but too for-profit”– Participant 5
“[forums] should be updated to 2020…doesn’t do justice to Microsoft’s brand”– Participant 5
Wireframing + Prototyping
Through our research and initial brainstorms, we defined pain points and user needs. These goals then guided our brainstorming, wireframing and lo-fi prototypes for milestone tasks.
- Find the User Group Site
- Sign up for a User Group
- Find User Group local to the user
- Join the User Group
- Find a nearby event
- Join the event
- Create a new User Group
How we Ideated Solutions
- Competitive audits
- Brainstorming
- Affinity mapping
- Solution sketching
- Wireframing
Simplifying the search
From user feedback, we knew the search experience on DCI was breaking UI patterns so the opportunity rose to implement a flat and simple navigation so that people can access group forums and events within a few clicks from anywhere in the community.
Based on prototype user feedback, we were able to reiterate the wireframes and implement actionable design items
Initial wireframe suggestion
After user feedback
Implementation
After we were confident in our initial designs, we started to refine the visual design of the page. In order to be consistent with the Microsoft brand, we implemented rules from Fluent Design along with starting our own design system for components that were unique to our needs.
Highlighting VIPs
The hero banner is one of the many components that we envisioned that could highlight VIPs and community members. These highlights allowed us to nurture these community members who went above and beyond to newer members.
