Design Enhancements in SharePoint for OneDrive Lists and Co-Pilot

Key takeaways:

• The design work done for OneDrive lists in SharePoint is a big step forward in design aesthetic with rich design capabilities that allow both LLM and end users to drive them.
• Denise Travona showed in the blog that Adam Harmit posted how easy it is to make a website, add a video, and list people in SharePoint.
• The timing of co-pilot's release is perfect because it can go alongside with the rich design capabilities of SharePoint.

Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, as I said, there was tricky because whenever you're doing two things, you have to sort of lose one as your hero message. Independent of any AI, the UI work that our design PM and engineering team had done for OneDrive lists in SharePoint. There's a big step function for it. And I know it's like people are like Jeff's is at every event. But no, just go look at OneDrive lists in SharePoint, what we blog today. And it's really a leap ahead and sort of the design aesthetic, things like how we use an animation, you know, the ease in which people can manipulate images. And so that timing is perfect to go alongside with co-pilot because if the basic rich design capabilities are there in SharePoint, it means the LLM as well as an end user can drive them. And so, you know, I love the fact that, you know, Denise Travona showed today in the blog that Adam Harmit posted. So it goes through and just, you just want to make a website. You know, I want to make a website. I wanted to have a video. I wanted to list some people on it. And you know, it uses all those rich new design capabilities that we could have shipped independently of co-pilot. And co-pilot takes advantage of them. And so I look at this as chapter three for SharePoint. (Time 0:14:46)

Evolution of Sharepoint

Key takeaways:

• SharePoint evolved in three chapters: releasing it for end users, cloud deployment without need of IT, and expressivity similar to custom-built websites with ease
• Each chapter of SharePoint has taken away chunks of work in making engaging intranets
• Third chapter of SharePoint adds a level of expressivity similar to custom-built websites with ease
• Third chapter of SharePoint is the end of a trilogy, but there may be more steps to come

Transcript: Speaker 1 Chapter one was when we first released, we took websites from a developer project to an end user activity. Press a button, get a SharePoint site in seconds. Chapter two was you didn't even have to deploy a server. We ran it for you in the cloud. So you didn't even need IT to deploy and upgrade and set up farms and load balancing and back up an archive and, you know, security patching and a trillion other things. So, you know, we took another chunk of work, if you will, out of making engaging intranets. And chapter three is we want, even though the new SharePoint UI we've had the last few years is much simpler and richer, we wanted to give people the level of expressivity they see on completely Custom built websites. But begin with that third chapter of magic, like take all the work. I wanted to look like this beautiful website, but I wanted to do that in seconds. So I think it's a nice chat end to the trilogy, if you will, not end, but, you know, I mean, they'll be at four steps to worry. But I think it's a nice third phase for SharePoint along the same theme of democratizing great engaging content for your company. It's just about saying I'm going to pick up your book, but if it's not finished yet. Yeah, no, no. It's probably like Georgia or Martin. And I have to also say your publisher is very gracious because you publish a chapter of it every five years. So certainly to be able to create a site using more natural language and also alongside it take advantage of a lot of the design and layout of capabilities. There's also the I'm ready to communicate internally. And maybe I've done some work in a document or a PowerPoint or I want to blend some of those together. One of the demos that we saw was I want to basically create a new page. There's a new start experience. And then there's a step to go create a page, but in that page creation using co-pilot, it was I want to write an article about and then point to existing word document. And off of that, the demo showed basically creating a beautiful SharePoint page, possibly a news article. And there's a lot that goes into that. And I think the parsing out what is in the word document kind of makes sense. What else is going on there that from an end user, not IT, that it's just going to go to the start, create a new page and be able to create it without doing a lot of heavy lifting. One thing the team did really well, and we talked about this a lot, is step back in product management. (Time 0:16:09)

Tags: microsoft, sharepoint

Sharepoint email

Key takeaways:

• The team did well in stepping back in product management and going back to basics of user jobs
• The job of creating compelling content does not end with creating it, it also needs to be consumed
• The software can take inputs like office documents and generate engaging pages with photos and videos
• The web partnership allows for team pictures and contact information to be included in the pages

Transcript: Speaker 1 One thing the team did really well, and we talked about this a lot, is step back in product management. There's a phrase called jobs to be done, user jobs and so forth. And we went back to basics of you've got somebody who wants to create compelling content, but they may already have some of the information, but they don't have the time or the skills To make it as polished as they would love to make it polished. But the job doesn't end there. They want it to be consumed. Nobody goes and creates a SharePoint for their own benefit. And so I love that there's two parts to this. One is we can take his input, you know, an office document and generate a page knowing, you know, the kinds of layouts that would be engaging with photos, maybe videos. You know, we have this web partnership, we know, I love that sort of the pictures of the team working on it, because it lets you celebrate the work of a group with people's faces, it lets The reader know who to reach out for for information and so forth. You know, going hand in, we announced, you know, brand center and custom fonts and the fact that co-pilot will be able to use those kinds of things. But again, it doesn't stop there. (Time 0:18:38)

Challenges with web publishing and the importance of a consistent user experience

Key takeaways:

• Web publishing has key differences from Word in terms of what people need and formatting expectations
• Shared control can lead to a more consistent user experience and require less user training materials
• There are slight differences between Microsoft 365 app in OneDrive and local innovations in UI

Transcript: Speaker 1 We've looked at that in the past and there's, you know, we're sort of tempted, but it turns out the differences for what people need in web publishing are pretty key differences than Say Word and it's interoperability and formatting expectations. So there's definitely been places we've looked at it and said, now we can't do that. At least not yet. Yeah. The last that I had that you got me thinking of was a time when somebody after we started doing a little bit more of a common experience across a lot of it was in OneDrive, certainly things That show up in OneDrive and SharePoint and teams that are similar was the consultant basically saying, I have to write less user training materials the more that you have a shared control Because it is then more consistent experience for the user. Yeah. No, that's good. It's actually one of the interesting discussions we're having going on now is the Microsoft 365 app in OneDrive have slight differences from sort of local innovations in the UI. And I agree with that person, but I will give you an example is the Microsoft.microsoft365 landing page let you see files that are not just in OneDrive and SharePoint, but they may be Emails, attachments or they may be things that live in other systems, say, you know, FEMA that's been indexed through connectors. (Time 0:39:49)

Discussion on the Recent OneDrive Innovation and the Use of the Word 'Refreshed'

Key takeaways:

• OneDrive has made recent innovations to make things more simple and easier to use
• The use of the word "refreshed" in the blog post was questioned and discussed
• Having products and brands that last a long time is rare in technology

Transcript: Speaker 1 But it really kind of changed the tactic. How should we think about the recent OneDrive innovation that, you know, that we just announced today? And it's been, I think it's definitely evolution. But some of them are pretty big bets on, you know, just making things more simple and easier to use. But as the team was ready to post the blog, they used the word refreshed. And in the notes, at least what I was reviewing, I was one word that you said, I don't want to use the word refreshed. And just based on now, if people are to go read the blog, not so much to argue the title is right or wrong. But for what the team was publishing and putting out, what was it about refreshed? And maybe in the context of sharing why? Yeah. I'm not sure I was right. But let me talk through it because it'd be good to get your take. And certainly people listen, you know, ultimately people listen to this or the ones that decide. It's pretty rare in technology to have these products and brands that are around for a long time, five, 10, 15, 20 years. And so inevitably they do need to be, for lack of a better term, modernized, to leverage new technologies, new aesthetics, new paradigms, new device types and so forth. And you know, we've used all sorts of monikers over the years. You know, the first thing I get to market at Microsoft, if you will, was the shift to Windows NT, NT new technology. It's the better version of Windows, the industrial strength version of Windows. We used modern in several places where, you know, that was always a tough one because you were saying, you know, you were making a very clear statement that you were setting expectations. There was a change that needed to be learned. And it was, you know, you're really by design choosing language that was saying the thing you already have is not any good anymore. And you know, we chose that word. You know, it was such a leap in 2016. We went, we said this is the modern SharePoint UI. But you can't keep doing that. You can't just say, here's the modern, modern, you've got. So I felt like the experiences we had for one right SharePoint and lists were really good, but we had a chance with this wave to make them great. And I was worried if we used a language like modern, classic, refreshed, reimagined was another one. You know, you remember, like reimagined was like, we were reimagining everything. I worried when I was reading that blog that we were going to scare people that this was a new thing to learn. And that was right now, the last thing people wanted was unnecessarily learning. So I definitely think, particularly in the case of the OneDrive UI, it feels like a very natural step forward. It is way more polished, it introduces some new views for people in meetings. But it's not a refresh implying that you have to relearn the information architecture of OneDrive. I was probably, now that we're doing this podcast, maybe a little picky and reading more into the word refresh, but I was just trying not to do a modern again. And it was just like, if you like OneDrive, you're going to love the new OneDrive. I think the way that it's positioned now, based on the change, for sure, but also just in the blog and the language of people kind of digesting it now, hearing some initial feedback and How people are actually reading it, it does, I think, play off better if people do realize, unless it is a big shift and we've changed significantly. But really the enhanced user experience is always going to be something new, whether that's refreshed or not. Refresh is probably fine. But I think- I reimagined it. Reimagine is the one that I wasn't in favor of, but refresh new. (Time 0:42:01)

Designing for Sharing: Balancing Simplicity and Flexibility

Key takeaways:

• Sharing is a challenging design problem due to the different meanings it holds and ways in which people do it
• Designers must balance simplicity and flexibility to achieve the efficient frontier of upper right flexible and simple
• Progress has been made in the area of cert sharing but there is a barbell feedback with conflicting opinions on the approach
• Good default choices in design can help address unintended sharing and maintain security.

Transcript: Speaker 1 I just, yeah, can hopefully do it a little bit faster without as much. Yeah. And sharing is like the hardest design problem of all time, because sharing means different things to different people and they do it a lot. So you have to think about the simplicity axis and the flexibility axis. And that's like a designer's job to sort of push to the efficient frontier, the upper right of flexible and simple, which is really hard. Usually when you add flexibility, you reduce simplicity. And I think we, you know, each time we've taken a crack at the cert sharing dialogue, we've made progress. But we always get this feedback and it's barbell feedback. There's a set of people who said, oh, thank you so much. You've made this work like an attachment email that can just be forwarded around. You don't get those damn access denied things. It's exactly what I want. And then, but then you get like, oh, no, you've reduced the friction for somebody that you unintended sharing. That's bad. How do I lock that thing down and turn it off? And so I think through some design choices and good default choices about in this new dialogue, by the time we update it later in the year, if whoever you address it to, it's just permission To them. (Time 0:46:42)