Microsoft Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update Tips App

Overview

Scenario – The Windows 10 Tips app was being redesigned to coincide with the release of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. All the content from the previous version of the app needed to go through a massive revision. From a content team’s perspective, this required rewriting the tips and from our end, we had to redo all the imagery since the tips were now being displayed as cards in a new size. These tips would not only live in the app itself, but also on a new Tips site displayed on Microsoft.com. Our team would be responsible for the capturing and output of all static images and animated gifs for the new Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

Solution – Supervising a team of production artists and designers, I worked with the PMs, design leads, content writers, and a media team to produce thousands of static images and animated gifs for the new Tips App. The work was not only created for the consumer release of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, but also the Enterprise version aimed at IT Administrators.

Process – Writers from the Content Experience (CX) team would fill out a request through their art request tool. Once, I received the request, I would do triage to determine the best possible solution for each tip. Sometimes, this required me to meet with the writers of the tips to sort out any issues I encountered with them. This required me to handle tip issues in various ways, depending on the problems. For example, here are some of the issues I needed to iron out with the team before the tips could be sent for publication:

• The information in the tips were unclear as to what they needed to convey.
• In case of creating an animated gif, the steps they provided were too long and were problematic for accessibility.
• The reproduction steps just didn’t work.
• There was a lack of information to begin with.
• The format needed to be changed from an image to an animated gif or video.
• The tip was too long and should be routed to the CX media team for creating a video.
• And lastly, it required hardware that we didn’t have

When there was a backlog of tips, I divided the work up between myself and a few other designers. Once the tip was created, prior to sending it back to the CX writer and publisher for test staging, we would go through the reproduction steps to make sure the tip being delivered was accurate. Then, we would send the image or the animated gif off to CX. After staging, if CX needed adjustment/revisions, they would send the tip back our way to revise. Once revised, we would send it back for a final publish.

View the online version: Microsoft.com/Tips