complexity – Cheryl Platz

Dynamics 365 settings IA: Power platform admin center

Cloud Services, Enterprise Experiences, Information Architecture, Leadership, UX and Product Design

As part of my role as the Design Lead for the launch of Microsoft's ambitious Power platform admin center, I took on several complex individual contributor projects. The largest of these projects was the migration of Dynamics app settings from the Dynamics 365 app on a legacy web client to the new Power platform admin center site, using a new information architecture and a new UI stack. Further complicating the assignment was the timeline presented for the work. Originally, the team had planned on migrating the old settings pages directly to the Dynamics UI stack, the Unified Client. This original…

Design leadership: Power platform admin center

Cloud Services, Enterprise Experiences, Leadership, Management, UX and Product Design

On November 1, 2017, I took on a new role at Microsoft as the Design Lead for a new and ambitious cross-product initiative, which 10 months later was released as the Power platform admin center. Read more about the site in Microsoft's words at the official press release. Problem Statement Unify four different admin centers - Dynamics 365 instance administration, Dynamics 365 app administration, admin.powerapps.com, and admin.flow.com - into a single experience on a new UI framework. 10 months later, the site moved out of private preview and into public release. The Team MY ROLE: Principal Designer and Design Lead…

Azure Partner UX Guidelines

Cloud Services, Enterprise Experiences, Information Architecture, Leadership, UX and Product Design

When I returned to Microsoft in August 2016, I joined as the Design Lead for the Azure Framework. Our team of 4 full-time designers, 2 researchers, and a content writer - along with our studio head, who worked closely with us - were responsible for improving the user experience of the entire Azure platform in two primary ways. Our first role was to work directly with developers on key features or controls. Our second role was a broader, less direct influence over the rest of the 70+ partner teams we could not work with directly. Upon joining, I immediately saw…

Azure Marketplace 2.0

Cloud Services, E-commerce, Enterprise Experiences, UX and Product Design

In the fall of 2016, my responsibilities as the Azure Framework Design Lead expanded to include direct responsibility for our pro developer marketplaces. When we began, the only active marketplace in our purview was AppSource.com, but there was an immediate need to take the lessons learned on AppSource and apply them to a completely new approach to the existing Azure Marketplace. Role and Team For the 2.0 version of the Azure Marketplace, I was the sole designer, working with 3-4 program manager partners and several UI developers on a daily basis. In addition, I partnered with our team's content designer…