Microsoft · Metrics · Senior · 45 to 60 minutes

What belongs in the next Office UI?

Microsoft makes widely used software and services, including Office, a suite for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Metrics design
Prioritization
Product judgment
Stakeholder management
Analytical thinking

The situation

The Office user experience leadership team has asked you, a senior PM in Microsoft’s productivity business, to recommend how the team should decide which commands and features deserve the most prominent placement in the next Office interface. The current product has accumulated years of menus, toolbars, and legacy patterns. Senior designers, support teams, power users, and executives all have strong views about what customers supposedly use every day, but those views conflict and are often based on anecdotes. Space in the new interface will be limited, and wrong choices could hide important capabilities for a huge installed base or overemphasize niche workflows. Office also has an existing opt in program that can collect anonymous usage information, but some leaders are skeptical that raw usage data should drive design, especially for a mature product with many expert users. Your VP wants a recommendation before the redesign is locked. They need to know what evidence should drive surfacing decisions, which metrics matter most, and how to use data without ignoring product judgment, privacy, or long term usability.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page decision memo.

Your answer must

Define a decision framework for deciding which commands get prominent placement, which stay secondary, and which can be deprioritized.
Specify 4 to 6 metrics or signals you would use, and explain how each would influence design decisions in a mature productivity product.
Explain how you would combine anonymous opt in usage data with qualitative inputs such as expert opinion, support feedback, or direct customer anecdotes.
Identify the main risks, biases, and blind spots in usage telemetry for this decision, including at least one privacy or trust concern and how you would address it.
Recommend a practical process for sharing the evidence, resolving disagreements, and revisiting decisions after release.

Constraints

The redesign timeline is already in motion, so your approach must work with existing product instrumentation and normal release planning.
Any measurement approach must rely on anonymous, opt in data and must not depend on personally identifiable information.
Interface space is constrained, so your recommendation must force tradeoffs rather than trying to surface everything.
You are advising for a mature product line with a very large and mixed user base, including novice and expert users.

Format

Use sections titled decision goal, metrics, methodology, risks, and recommendation.

How Microsoft actually played it

The Office design lead explains how anonymous usage data from the Customer Experience Improvement Program replaced guesswork and loud expert opinion when deciding what to put in the Office 2007 interface. The post gives examples of the old way of deciding and shows how data changed the conversation. Valuable for seeing how product telemetry changes prioritisation in a mature product.

Replace guru opinions and anecdotes with usage data when deciding what to surface.
An opt-in telemetry program can inform design at the scale of a mature product.
Question what feels commonly used until the data confirms it.
Share the data openly so decisions can be debated on evidence.

Built from Inside Deep Thought (Why the UI, Part 6) by Jensen Harris, Microsoft.