Redesigning An Existing Interface-Microsoft Teams

I am an aspiring graphic designer and a student in my third year of design college. This is one of the many challenging projects that I have encountered until now. Having no knowledge of graphic design whatsoever before joining UID, this is hard for me but I like that I can learn something that I see in my day-to-day life.

This project was completed in collaboration with my classmates Anisha Nath and Aditi Mukare.

*Disclaimer:

1. This was carried out on teams for Business and Organizations. Teams for Schools requires a mail id provided by the school which we did not have.
2. This project does not have any ties with Microsoft.

What is the project?

The project brief was to take an online brand/company/corporate, study their present stature, existing forum & customer base, and the vision outlayed. Then, using a web design process and an understanding of UX and UI, add essential features to their existing interface. We also had to recreate their platform for better and more engaging user experience with the help of research and analysis.

I chose an LMS, Microsoft Teams, to redesign as it is being used increasingly currently, given the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a universal communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. Having an excellent team space is key to being able to make creative decisions and communicate with one another. Shared workspace software makes this much easier to achieve, especially if a particular team is based in a very large company, has many remote employees, or is made up of a significant number of team members.

Stakeholder Profiling

The different stakeholders of MS Teams are Microsoft, the Sponsors, Project Team (employees of Teams), Policymakers (govt.), and the Users.

Sponsorship Coalition

• Executive Sponsor- drives overall messaging and accountability
• Business Sponsor- facilitates new technology requests for their business unit
• Department Managers
• Human Resources Manager- is accountable for talent management
• Project Manager/Lead- oversees the transition project, ensures completion of all tasks

Project Team

• Collaboration Lead/Architect- creates and implements the solution architecture
• Network Lead- provides insights into the network design and execution
• Security Lead- provides insights into security design, process, and implementation
• Synchronous Communications Lead- owns presence tooling such as chat, meetings, and calling
• Asynchronous Communications Lead- owns asynchronous tooling such as SharePoint, OneDrive, etc
• Telephony Lead- provides insights into telephony design and implementation
• Service Owner/Quality Champion- owns the operation of Teams all-up, including the quality of the user experience
• Desktop and Devices Lead- provides input into clients, devices, and desktop apps
• IT Pro/Tenant Admin- ensures the network readiness and Microsoft 365 admin center configuration are in place
• Support/ Help Desk Lead- manages the readiness of your support desk
• Change Management Lead- oversees the user change management and adoption program
• Marketing Lead- designs and implements communication campaigns
• Training Lead- designs and implements training plans

The Users

• The Education Community
• Different Commercial Businesses
• Marketing
• Healthcare
• Connecting with Friends/Family/People
• Other Companies/Sectors

S.W.O.T Analysis

Strengths

• Productive and good communication — MS Teams increases the productivity by collaborating chats, online meetings, shared files, tasks, etc., and making them available in one single app and interface (Microsoft office apps in one place). Teams also has a wide range of 3rd party apps that integrate into Teams, so that users can work efficiently. Integration of all the tools in a single place.
• Better focus on work-related topics- it can be time-consuming, going through an inbox with a lot of messages related to different things. Teams compartmentalizes information into channels and puts your information in context. The channel only contains conversations, meetings, and documents related to the topic of that specific channel.
• No additional cost for Microsoft 365 users. If premium features are not required, you can still use the free version of ms teams.
• Transparency- Easier to keep everyone in the loop, so that they are aware of what’s going on. Also, in your channel, when you post something, you can mention the person you want to get notified (@name). The person will be notified and the other member will also be able to view it.
• Before joining a meeting, you can select your audio and video settings, and also customize your background.
• When you speak into the microphone, a notification pops up on your screen to remind you that your mic is on.
• Meetings are automatically recorded and made available in the chatbox.
• Due to COVID-19, Teams came up with this feature called together mode, where you can virtually be in the same room so it doesn’t feel like you’re alone.
• Good mobile experience.
• User-friendly features like — GIFS, stickers, emoticons, etc. Users can react during meetings using emojis, supplementing non-verbal cues that can be difficult to notice in online meetings.
• Translation- If you work in a multilingual team, you can translate a comment into your primary language.
• If you missed a meeting you can easily tune in to the part of the meeting that is of interest to you by searching for particular words that were said in the video recording of the meeting.
• Storage — Files are stored in the cloud. Even after deleting a channel, you can still retrieve the files.
• Together mode- Microsoft Teams has a new meeting experience that uses AI segmentation technology to digitally place participants in a shared background, making it feel like they are in the same room with everyone else in the meeting or class. The mode makes meetings more engaging and helps users pick up on non-verbal cues that are so important to human interaction.
• Chat bubbles- The Chat feature has become a lively space for idea sharing without interrupting meeting flow. Chat bubbles allow all chats sent during a Microsoft Teams meeting to appear on the screens of all meeting participants, making the chat more central to the conversation.
• MS Whiteboard- new features, sticky notes.

Weakness

• A lot of similar tools — With the plethora of options, people are still very confused about which tool to use in which situation. It’s up to Microsoft to educate their users about their tools.
• Lack of notifications when creating a team — If you try to make a new team with a name that already exists, you don’t get any heads up on it, so you could end up with two or more teams with identical names which can be confusing. Even though you can search for the name in the search bar and find out all the existing teams, it would be more convenient if there was a pop-up warning.
• Limited flexibility — You can’t move channels between teams and hence, you need to replicate a channel manually which is time-consuming.
• Confusing file structure — Although you can search for a file in Microsoft Teams, the way the files are stored in this application can be confusing. Every channel has a root folder where all files uploaded to the conversations are stored. Links from the Teams conversation to the file can break as the folders in this root file are moved around and organized.
• Teams require constant internet connectivity. Unlike outlook or other native email applications (which caches information), Teams requires a constant Internet connection to start. Users who frequently travel or live in a remote place with limited Internet connectivity may face some problems with this.
• Not intuitive — new users especially, find it hard to navigate and figure out Teams as there are a lot of features.

Opportunities

• The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a huge amount of users flocking to Teams for their online studies, work-from-home jobs, cultivating hobbies, etc.
• The files and wiki tabs that MS Teams has provides a bigger opportunity to the users as they can now access all the files and links posted in one place and not have to worry about losing it or misplacing it.

Threats

• Competitors like Slack and Cisco Webex are very close in terms of services provided. They can, shortly, catch up to MS Teams.
• No new innovation that will make Teams better and easier to use.

Competitor Analysis

Microsoft Teams has five main competitors namely-Cisco Jabber, Cisco Webex, Slack, Zoom, and Google Classroom.

Most of these applications have the same features as Teams apart from a few as listed below:

• A separate area for filing files that are sent through the app
• Free apps that can be integrated into the application. Only Cisco Webex has this feature

Multiple screen sharing is a feature that only Zoom has.

Customer Analysis

Demographic :

• Users :

1. Students

· Be it primary, secondary, high school, or college, students affiliated with any educational institution conducting their teaching online can make use of Microsoft teams.

· Students also have an advantage of open and distance learning, wherein they can connect with teachers of any subject be it language, music, or any other activity Regardless of the physical distance between them.

2. Working Professionals — Individual businesses and multinational companies use Microsoft teams for various purposes ranging from conferencing, scheduling meetings, planning events, and other work from home-related activities.

3. Family and Friends — Since this is a versatile platform it can be used for casual purposes such as calling a friend, virtually meeting a distant family member online, or General Group/individual chatting.

• Age: There are broadly two types of users classified based on age

· Dependent — They will require assistance from their parents or Guardians. Age group between 5 to 10 years. This includes the ages 60 and above and also any physically challenged user.

· Independent — They are capable enough to navigate and use the technology on their own. The age group is between 10 to 59 years.

• Socio-Economic Background: Considering social-economic status this software can be used by anyone able to operate a compatible device. Microsoft Teams is an unpaid platform and although it specifically targets the upper-middle-class income range who might be more comfortable with using the software given their higher digital exposure, Ultimately it is user friendly and can be easily used despite the differences in earnings.
• Geographic Scope: A major advantage of Microsoft Teams is the vast coverage it offers across the globe. Ease of accessibility regardless of location and geographical barriers increases digital reach and contributes in making the world a ‘global village’. Regardless of the location of the participants, be it international or local, each of them can conveniently connect with the others. The only mandatory requirement is a stable network connection in addition to a device that supports the latest version of the software.
• Usage: Since Microsoft Teams is a communication platform with not only private and team chat and video conferencing, but also file storage and integration with other Microsoft office tools. The calendar button makes it easy to organize and schedule meetings and classes

The app has 2 customized versions based on the end-user

1. The student version includes dedicated sections for submitting assignments based on deadlines and viewing class notes and files.

2. The business version enables live events that can accommodate the participation of up to 10,000 attendees at a time. Document and multimedia file sharing facilitates instant creative decision making and effective business communication.

• Challenges and Objections: It is critical to troubleshooting the possible causes as to why customers would choose not to use this platform.

1. The initial difficulty a user may face as to getting to know how to use the app is mitigated through a detailed video uploaded by Microsoft which covers all aspects of how each function is us.

2. All meetings need to be pre-scheduled and the team channel members have to be added beforehand. Prompt meetings cannot be held which may be required depending on the organization. In such circumstances, the call/ chat feature can be relied upon which facilitates direct one-way conversation.

3. Another challenge is the personal preference of other video conferencing applications which the user may personally want to use more than Microsoft Teams. Hence customers must know about the advantages which have already been discussed in detail.

Customer Reviews

Problems Faced by Customers

1. I am seeing old chats and threads in Teams or my messages won’t load

Sol: If you’re not seeing the latest messages or threads, then you might need to restart the app manually to force a refresh.

2. Webcam or microphone won’t work on a call

Sol: If this is the case, the issue could likely be a hardware problem with your webcam or microphone itself. It also could be a problem with your privacy setting when it relates to teams. First off, you’ll want to make sure your webcam and microphone are selected before joining or starting a call. If that still doesn’t work then the problem might be due to permissions. If you’re using the Teams web app, you want to make sure that you’ve granted your web browser and the web page permissions to use your webcam and microphone.

3. Teams is freezing

Sol: If this happens to you, an easy resolution is to force quit the app and try launching it again.

4. I am not getting notifications

Sol: In this case, you might want to check your app settings. If you’re using the Teams web app specifically and you aren’t getting notifications, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve enabled them.

5. When you try to sign in to Microsoft Teams in Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, the site continually loops, and you can never sign in.

Sol: This issue occurs if your organization uses Trusted Sites in Internet Explorer and doesn’t enable the URLs for Microsoft Teams. In this case, the Teams web-based application cannot sign in, as the trusted sites for Teams are not enabled. Change Microsoft Internet Explorer or Edge settings using administrator rights or a Group Policy object (GPO).

6. You can’t access a notebook for Microsoft Teams in Microsoft

Sol: This issue occurs if the document libraries contain more than 5,000 OneNote items. This is a known OneNote limitation in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when more information becomes available. To work around this issue, reduce the number of items in OneNote. We recommend that you access OneNote through OneNote online or the OneNote application and remove items that aren’t needed.

7. When a user leaves the company or is removed from Teams, that user’s name appears in Teams as “Unknown user.” The conversation tab also displays: “Unknown user has been added to the team.”

Sol: Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available.

8. When you sign in to Microsoft Teams, you receive this error message: “You’re missing out! Ask your admin to enable Microsoft Teams for <CompanyName>”

Sol: In Office 365 Education tenants, Microsoft Teams isn’t enabled by default. You’ll have to turn it on.

9. After security fixes are applied in the Teams client for macOS, virtual camera apps may stop functioning.

Sol: Microsoft is working to re-enable secure support for virtual camera apps on the Mac client. Until an update is released, you can use the virtual camera in Teams in a web browser (such as Edge or Chrome) on your Mac.

Problem Areas

During our research, these are the few problems we found people were having while using Teams:

• The screen couldn’t be split into two so that two tabs could be open simultaneously
• The comments/private chats couldn’t be pinned to the top
• Sometimes, a link to join meetings is not provided which causes extra hassle while trying to join a meeting
• Notifications aren’t available for everything that is happening on teams
• No panel displays scheduled meetings
• Many teams have the same name and so it causes confusion

Proposed Solutions

• A tutorial will be provided when you first start the application to educate the users on the different services imparted by Teams and how to use them.
• Notifications stating suggested names or that the name has already been taken to pop-up while creating a new team.
• When creating a new channel in a new team, the opportunity to add an existing channel from another team will be provided.
• Users will be able to work on files and upload them on one specific platform while they are offline. The work done while offline will be synced with other users and devices when there is an internet connection, this will only work if the user is already signed into his account.
• The interface will provide an option for splitting the screen wherein the user can have two tabs open side-by-side for example, the Teams tab and the chat tab can be worked on simultaneously through this option.
• There will now be an option to pin the most important comments in Teams to the top so that it won’t get lost in the multitude of other chats.

Redesigning Process

Microsoft Teams is a large platform with many components. The redesigning process started with finding everything we could about MS Teams and compiling it in a word document. The next thing on the list was making the navigation flow for the existing interface. We then interacted with people we knew who worked with Microsoft Teams on a daily basis and asked for their opinion on the platform. We also looked at online reviews from users all around the world and integrated it into what we found Teams is lacking in. This leads to a brainstorming process of the possible changes that could be made to the interface to make it better. The word doc and navigation flow was worked on throughout this process as we kept on adding information.

Then came the style guide and the wireframes. This was the most challenging part of the project along with making the prototypes as now we had to make something new and better out of an existing interface that was already popular. The icons were made in a similar style to the existing interface but we did make some changes to it like adding new icons or changing the older ones to suite us.

The wireframes were made first for the areas that were being changed and then they were incorporated into the other wireframes made for the prototype.

Navigation Flow

The Wireframes

Mockups

This finally marked the end of the project. It was a stressful few weeks but with a lot of learning packed into it. This was a very fruitful assignment and I was able to learn a lot.

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