A Night feed in Edge that is curated for bedtime
Microsoft · Edge creative workshop
6-week Design Sprint
[My responsibility]
Key contributor in the team of 4 Microsoft employee/
Facilitated user interviews and user testings/
Designed the main screens (UI + UX)/
[Project Impact]
Presented to cross-functional Edge product team/
Received the most positive feedback among all ideas in user testing/
The idea was taken over by Edge design team for further explorations/
Microsoft Edge Design Sprint: call for ideas for Gen-Z users
Gen-Z users (birth years from 1995 to 2003) become more and more socially influential by creating and interpreting trends
Mobile experiences have overtaken PC Internet usage in the U.S. and worldwide
Desk research: read research reports & observed Gen-Z on social media
Gen-Z Segmentation Study by EY 👇
Gen-Z users on Tik tok 👇
Main insights: the Gen-z users are…
Synthesis: uncovering opportunities
According to Gen-Z Segmentation Study by EY, 35% Gen-Z users are stressed strivers
Quick & dirty user interviews: the 1 hour before sleep is the only free time in a day that users have full control over and revenge bedtime procrastination is common
“The 1-2 hour before sleep is probably the only time that truly belongs to myself in the whole day… but I ended up staying up late and blaming myself for it… posts on social media also bring about peer pressure and make me even more anxious in the end.”
—— User quote
Key insights
Phone usage helps stressed strivers relax & entertain, connect to the world, and improve themselves
Indulging in inefficient and carefree activities (browsing the internet) before sleep and staying up late builds anxiety and pressure
People tend to be less rational, have a more sensitive, active, & reflective mind, and focus on oneself during night
Opportunities
How might we help stressed strivers make their time before sleep more meaningful and soothe their anxieties?
Hypothesis: mixed content feed with entertainment and self-improvement media may help with the HMW
The algorithm behind the feed has a mid-level of personalization, which is not aiming to make people addictive or create information bubbles
A night feed should be more personal, diverse, and relaxing than a daytime feed
We also want to add playfulness to the experience to help soothe users’ anxieties
Design solution: Edge night owl mode with a feed curated for bed time
The night owl mode has a dark look, and can be activated by dragging down the Edge homepage. The content feed covers a wide range of topics, e.g. entertaining, knowledgeable, and more intimate & pioneer topics (psychology/relationship/sex)
Users can set their own ending time for night owl mode
The night owl mode is not accessible after the ending time users set
An e-pet is here for emotion soothing
Fun interactions of the e-cat when disliking an article
The e-pet also reminds users of their digital health. It walks around on the screen when the ending time is approaching
We received very positive user feedback from the User interview ✅
“I like the night owl idea the most... It is so interesting to me and I definitely see myself using it!” — Tristan
Next step: the Edge mobile team took over the concept to explore the design that can be really implemented 😊
My reflection & take-aways
Deepened my thinking about AI & human values: nowadays machine learning algorithms are automatically taking away human rights of decision-making, making the value-sensitive design on intelligent products more important. Designers have the responsibility to stand for users’ well-being and cautiously plan the underlying rules behind algorithms
Quickly delivered and validated ideas in a short sprint: in the 6-week design sprint, I had to adapt to the speed of the agile design process
What could be done better: we should have focused more on testing the hypothesis we had in the user interviews, so that we could receive more valuable user feedback to better inform iterations