Creating an Improved Self-guided Journey to Adopt M365

Improved the landing page and designed a self-guided experience to help users adopt M365 services more quickly and efficiently

Role

Product Designer

Timeline

2019.11 - 2022.08

Tool

Figma

Contribution

As part of the M365 Admin Center design team, I supported the FastTrack service experience by applying a user-centered approach to enhance adoption and onboarding.

I led the redesign of the landing page and self-guided flows to drive better engagement with M365 services & played dual roles as both UX researcher and designer to identify user pain points, uncover opportunities, and iterate based on continuous feedback.

Impact

↗ 3× increase in service adoption

90% completion rate for the newly launched self-guided experiences

Background

The current experience needs improvement to better meet business goals

Microsoft 365 FastTrack is a service that supports users in successfully adopting Microsoft 365. To increase engagement and drive scalable adoption, the team enhanced self-guided experiences by introducing clearer, more effective onboarding guides.

As a result, the team faced challenges with scalability and limited user insights, highlighting the need to improve the overall experience.

Research

Users are struggling to navigate the landing page and self guides efficiently

Due to a lack of user data, I conducted a heuristic evaluation of the current experience to uncover potential user pain points and developed solution concepts to help define the design direction

Pain Points

Solution

Project Goal

Designed a scalable, user-informed self-guided experience that improves discoverability and boosts adoption

I led the design effort by conducting a UX audit to identify user pain points, running usability tests to validate different concepts, and iterating on designs to deliver the most effective experience

Iteration 1

Optimized landing page for better navigation

Based on the UX audit and heuristic evaluation I conducted on the existing experience, I identified key user pain points and developed hypotheses to guide potential solutions.

Iteration 2

Implement personalization to curate the setup journey and support better decision-making

After the initial release, I collaborated with the team to introduce a personalized experience tailored to user roles, settings, and needs. We designed a curated setup journey with progress tracking to help users navigate key setup steps more efficiently and confidently.

Beyond the landing page, I also focused on improving clarity within each guide…

While the personalized landing experience helped guide users toward relevant setup paths, I also identified friction within the guides themselves.

To improve clarity and reduce overwhelm, I iterated on the guide-level content and visuals—removing overly technical icons and introducing simpler, more intuitive illustrations.

Research

What is the most effective layout for intuitive navigation and clearer information?

After iterating on the design based on earlier testing, I ran a final round of testing to validate which layout helped users navigate categories more easily and whether overall clarity had improved.

Final Design

A flexible, scalable design that meets both user and business needs

The final solution balances clarity, flexibility, and growth. It simplifies navigation so users can easily explore setup guides without feeling overwhelmed. By organizing categories in a focused view, users are guided step-by-step through what matters most to them.

At the same time, the design supports scalability—making it easier for the team to add new categories and content without cluttering the experience. It’s a thoughtful solution that adapts to both user workflows and evolving business goals.

Streamlining the onboarding experience to Microsoft 365 services

Nov '19 - Aug '22 Microsoft 365 FastTrack
context
M365 FastTrack offers self-service tools, guides, and supports to help users to onboard and adopt Microsoft 365 services easily.

I led the redesign of the landing page to better address user needs by providing personalized, step-by-step onboarding experiences. This effort improved navigation, usability, and overall efficiency in helping users adopt M365 services more effectively.
Project summary
Problem
How can we help users to adopt M365 services faster and more easily?
Final outcome
Redesigned the landing page with a personalized experience tailored to user needs.
Before
After
Impact in numbers
x3
Increased in adoption rate
>90%
Average completion rate for self-guided experiences
ℹ️ Below is summary of the design, and I’m happy to share more detailed progress upon request. Contact me: hwak26@gmail.com
Context
Problems
As the team shifted its strategy to prioritize self-serve guides on the landing page, scalability challenges emerged in the existing experience, along with difficulties in validating new concepts due to lack of user information.
Understanding existing experience  
To gather deeper user insights, I led a workshop with the product team to map the customer journey, evaluate the existing experience, address uncertainties, and align on project goals—focusing on scaling self-guided flows.

Additionally, I conducted a heuristic evaluation to identify key usability issues and potential pain points.
Research findings
UX audits
There were four key problems identified through the heuristic evaluation, winformation overload, lack of hierarchy, too many options, and inconsistent design.
  • Information overload
  • Lack of hierarchy
  • Too many choices, leading to decision fatigue
  • Inconsistent design
These issues suggested that users struggled to navigate services efficiently, and adding more services to the landing page could further exacerbate the problem.
Design solution
Improving the navigation
This created an opportunity opportunity to improve the landing page navigation. Over three iterative design cycles, improvements were driven by engineering feasibility and user research insights to ensure a more intuitive experience
V1. Streamlining navigation
To improve navigation, I implemented tabs, categorization, filters, suggestions, and search, making it easier for users to understand available resources, identify priorities, and navigate efficiently.
V2. Personalization
Following the successful launch of the first version, I collaborated with the team to define a new vision for a personalized landing page experience. Our goal was to provide tailored guidance based on user workflows and task completion, enabling easier access to relevant self-service guides.

To align with this vision, I worked closely with the product team to understand the roadmap for delivering personalized experiences and designed functionality that supported this strategic direction.

For this version, I introduced a new overview page that organizes recommended self-guides into distinct sections. Each section includes a progress bar, status indicators, and a curated list of recommended guides to encourage user engagement.
Research
To validate the concept, I conducted usability testing with six participants to observe how they interacted with the new experience and gather valuable insights
V3. Focused experience
After the launch of V2, I noticed that the page was becoming increasingly long and overloaded with information as more guides were added.  making it difficult for users to focus on tasks and potentially overwhelming them.

To address this, I explored different layout options to create a more streamlined and scalable experience. I tested two key approaches:
  • In-filter categories
  • In-page fixed navigation
Research
To validate which pattern works better, I conduct another round of usability testing get user feedback.