Understanding the needs of enterprise users to build a Hub

Executive Summary

Findings

Users have three major Jobs To Be Done: Search, Coordination, Collaboration.

M365 Hubs must integrate apps and software that are contextual to each user’s industry and role.

Users struggle with document clutter and frequent context switching that reduce productivity.

Recommendations

Present integration tools in context to encourage usage and demonstrate value.

Empower users to find and use new integrations through a more accessible app store, and simpler interfaces.

Ensure that integrations provide rich value to users through contextual and intelligent interactions.

Problem Space

Microsoft is building a hub environment where apps and tools are integrated between Teams, Outlook, and Office.com. Eventually these hub experiences will also be extended to other M365 products like OneNote, SharePoint, Word, Excel, and more!

One of the keys to building this hub environment is providing developers with the tools to create seamless hub experiences. The development process for M365 apps is being streamlined and consolidated in preparation of the hub.

Devs were excited, but they kept asking us:

How might we create a hub experience that helps users be more productive in M365?

Methodology

This research has two phases:

  1. Diary study (n=19)

  2. Online survey (n=200)

Questions included:

  • What Microsoft tools did you use today?

  • What non-Microsoft tools did you use today?

  • How did you feel as you used these tools?

In total, 155 diary entries recorded, 200 survey respondents, and 456 individual work tasks were captured.

Analyzing the data

Coding and quantifying different tasks and entries

 

Organizing tasks into workflows and processes