A 0 -1 Survey Content Management Portal

A design that boosted productivity & sped up user workflow

COMPANY

Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft

ROLE

Lead Designer

Lead Designer

Lead Designer

Duration

3 months

3 months

3 months

YEAR

2023-2024

2023-2024

2023-2024

Project TLDR
The context

A project to create a survey content management tool that would allow admins to easily create custom survey content in Viva Pulse

The problem

How might we help admins quickly create custom survey content for their entire organization so they can speed up individual survey creation and boost product adoption

The goals

User

  • Have control over customize content for their organization (primary)

  • Quick turnaround on editing content

Business & Stakeholder

  • Unblock product purchase for key customers

  • Time to market

  • Focus on core user needs first

The solution

A survey content management portal that allows admins to easily choose the surveys they want to update and modify content with a design familiar to all Pulse users

The impact

40%

decrease in redundant survey customization

Unblocked customers

Multiple core customers commit to purchasing the app for their orgs

Role

Lead designer

Researcher

Lead designer

Researcher


Duration

3 months

3 months


Team

Senior PM

Front & backend dev

Engineering lead

01. Keep your users close
Users were reluctant to adopt Pulse
Users were reluctant to adopt Pulse

Based on previous feedback, current users were reluctant to adopt Pulse without the ability to control and customize org-wide survey content

Our hypothesis

We believed that allowing for deeper customization would support users' longer-term adoption of the product.

Talking to customers

To verify our hypothesis, we interviewed our current users/customers to gain insights and understand more about who they are and their needs as HR Admins.

“ I wish we could make templates our own to allow managers to select something that's been thought through on our side. ”

“ I wish we could make templates our own to allow managers to select something that's been thought through on our side. ”

Pulse user, HR Admin

Pulse user, HR Admin

Additionally we found that…

Users currently feel forced to get creative in sending out org-wide custom content

Users feel the app doesn't bring value without org-wide custom content

Users are also survey authors

Some users send out content to multi-lingual teams

02. A little empathy goes a long way
Journey mapping helped to visualize where users struggle
Journey mapping helped to visualize where users struggle

Gathering insights from users was a valuable step to help create a journey map and illustrate users thoughts, feelings, and experiences on how they currently manage and edit survey content for their organizations

Summarizing the map

Low points

  • No unified approach to content makes things feel disorganized

  • Time is wasted fixing errors and finding workarounds

  • Feeling of being locked to only stock content

High points

  • Authors can edit surveys to fit their needs

  • Current included survey templates are useful

  • Surveys are created quickly thanks to pre-made content


03. Don't reinvent the wheel
A new dashboard combined with an existing authoring experience drove the design
A new dashboard combined with an existing authoring experience drove the design

User interviews and journey mapping not only helped to learn and then visualize collected insights, but also identify low points that could be elevated.


With this knowledge, it was time to move to mid-fidelity designs to better visualize a solution and get feedback from stakeholders.

Approaching the initial design

A competitive analysis conducted previously, highlighted that content in a table format was the familiar pattern for managing survey content.


Using this, along with considering Jakob's Law, I was able to choose a design direction that leveraged a mental model users in this space already know.

Taking advantage of existing designs

In addition to a landing page, users also needed a space to modify content.


Considering the stakeholder "time to market" goal along with a focus on giving users a familiar design when modifying content, I opted to leverage the existing survey author editing framework rather than starting from scratch, but made a few key updates to align with the primary user (admins)

Update 1 - Revising control panel

This original authoring flow only took into account survey time and length

The original author flow only took into account survey time and length


A template info section was added to help users track edit history and know what language the template would appear in across their organization. The UI was also updated to improve visual hierarchy and distinguish the two sections.

The original author flow only took into account survey time and length


Update 2 - Changing buttons and wizard to match user flow

Authoring a survey had an extra step over creating a template so a wizard as well as a next button to guide the user through the process was necessary

Authoring a survey had one extra step over creating a template so a wizard as well as a next button to guide the user through the process was necessary

Since creating a template in our feature was kept to a two step process, the wizard was removed. Users could also instantly publish a custom survey once they made changes

04. Give the users what they want
Usability tests revealed new insights about collaboration and notifications
Usability tests revealed new insights about collaboration and notifications

After taking the designs through two lightweight review sessions (one with design and one with stakeholders), I made updates based on feedback.


Now it was finally time to test with users!

Usability test insights

While results were mostly positive on overall usability, users did provide a couple interesting insights that hadn't come up when speaking with users previously…

New content notifications

Multiple users wondered how they could announce the publishing of a new survey template to their organization

External collaboration

Users wanted to be able to collaborate simultaneously on drafts as collaboration is often done this way in an external program i.e. a Google doc

05. A balancing act
Time to market kept the project in reality
Time to market kept the project in reality

After getting feedback from users, I was excited to see how I could iterate and incorporate it into the design. Before I put pen to paper (or mouse to mousepad), it was essential to speak with PM and engineering to understand the feasibility of adding these features.

The reality of implementation

After meeting with project PM and engineering folks, it was clear that collaborative drafting and email notifications would take multiple months of engineering effort and investigation.


We now had to weigh the focus on time to market, unblocking app purchase for core customers, and the core user need against the benefit of these additional features and a decision was made to not include drafting or email notifications.


Not being able to include these features in this design phase was a letdown, although I was able to come to a compromise in which engineering would continue their investigation into implementing these features for the second stage of this project.

06. As easy as..
Design hand off
Design hand off

Now that I had aligned with engineering and PM on what we could include in this phase, it was time to complete a couple fit and finish reviews, accessibility specs, and handoff the final design to be built!


Below are the final results:

Choose a template to edit
1
1

Users can easily find the template they want and sort by the three columns if needed

Make edits and click
publish
2

A familiar, but updated survey editing design gives users the info they need while reducing the steps between editing and publishing

Confirm publishing
3

… and that's it! Once edits are confirmed, the template will appear for survey authors in the user's organization

Make edits and click publish
2

A familiar, but updated survey editing design gives users the info they need while reducing the steps between editing and publishing

Confirm publishing
3

… and that's it! Users click publish and the template will appear for survey authors in the user's organization

07. Reflections & lessons
Reflections & lessons
Reflections & lessons

Sorry, no punchy title here… I used all my creativity on the last 6 sections!


Jokes aside, thank you for reading this far (or if you scrolled through most of this case study that's okay too, I know you've probably read 20 of these things today).


This project journey was rewarding, not only just because it shipped, but also for its lessons in adaptability, cross-collaboration, and early-project planning.


Below are some moments that stood out to me:

Reflections

  • Looking back, I would've leveraged a cross-functional MoSCoW-like workshop to better weigh what we view as must haves and should haves and know where to focus our efforts


  • I feel I could've proposed a better compromise for the drafting feature, perhaps just allowing one user at a time to edit drafts via a lockout/read only system. This may have allowed us to keep a drafting section that multiple users could view at once and be more aligned with user feedback

Lessons

  • Sometimes (read: often), design requires you to work within constraints and know when to compromise


  • Project partners also have needs, goals, and motivations that should be considered, just like users


  • Speaking with stakeholders often can create better alignment and help speed up design


© 2025 RC All rights reserved. Designed with care in sunny, San Jose, CA.

© 2025 RC All rights reserved. Designed with care in sunny, San Jose, CA.

02. A little empathy goes a long way
Journey mapping helped to visualize where users struggle

Gathering insights from users was a valuable step to help create a journey map and illustrate users thoughts, feelings, and experiences on how they currently manage and edit survey content for their organizations

Summarizing the map

Low points

  • No unified approach to content makes things feel disorganized

  • Coordination challenges when collaborating

  • Time is wasted ensuring org-wide content is followed

High points

  • Authors can edit surveys

  • Collaboration reduces time to survey creation

  • Current included survey templates are useful

  • Surveys are created quickly

Touch points

  • Users start customizing survey template to align with company values

  • Users finalize survey content and deploy surveys to their organization

User thoughts

  • "This template needs to reflect our company's specific requirements."

  • "How can we ensure the content is followed by everyone?

03. Don't reinvent the wheel
A new dashboard combined with a familiar experience drove the design

User interviews and journey mapping not only helped to learn and then visualize collected insights, but also identify opportunity areas for improvement.


With this knowledge, it was time to move to mid-fidelity designs to better visualize a solution and get feedback from stakeholders

Approaching the initial design

A competitive analysis conducted previously highlighted that content in a table format was the typical pattern for managing survey content.


Using this along with considering Jakob's Law, I was able to choose a design direction that leveraged a mental model users in this space already know.

Taking advantage of existing flows

In addition to a landing page, users also needed a space to modify content.


Considering the stakeholder "time to market" goal along with a focus on giving users a familiar design when modifying content, I opted to leverage the existing survey author editing framework while making a few key updates to align to the user's core goals

The original author flow only took into account survey time and length


A template info section added to help users track edit history and know what language the template would appear in

Authoring a survey had one extra step over creating a template so a wizard as well as a next button to guide the user through the process was necessary

Since creating a template in our feature was kept to a two step process, the wizard was removed. Users could also publish a custom survey once they made changes

04. Give the users what they want
Usability testing revealed useful insights about collaboration and notifications

After taking the designs through two lightweight review sessions (one with design and one with stakeholders), I made updates based on feedback.


Now it was finally time to test with users!

Usability test insights

While results were mostly positive on overall usability, users did provide a couple interesting insights that hadn't come up when speaking with users previously…

New content notifications

Multiple users wondered how they could announce the publishing of a new survey template to their organization

External collaboration

Users wanted to be able to collaborate simultaneously on drafts as collaboration is often done this way in an external program i.e. a Google doc

05. A balancing act
Time to market kept the project in reality

After getting feedback from users, I was excited to see how I could iterate and incorporate it into the design. Before I put pen to paper (or mouse to mousepad), it was essential to speak with PM and engineering to understand the feasibility of adding these features.

The reality of implementation

After meeting with project PM and engineering folks, it was clear that collaborative drafting and email notifications would take multiple months of engineering effort and investigation.


We now had to weigh the focus on time to market, unblocking app purchase for core customers, and the core user need against the benefit of these additional features and a decision was made to not include drafting or email notifications.


Not being able to include these features in this design phase was a letdown, although I was able to come to a compromise in which engineering would continue their investigation into implementing these features for the second stage of this project.

06. As easy as..
Design hand off

Now that I had aligned with engineering and PM on what we could include in this phase, it was time to complete a couple fit and finish reviews, accessibility specs, and handoff the final design to be built!


Below are the final results:

Choose a template to edit
1

Users can easily find the template they want and sort by the three columns if needed

Make edits and click
publish
2

A familiar, but updated survey editing design gives users the info they need while reducing the steps between editing and publishing

Confirm publishing
3

… and that's it! Once edits are confirmed, the template will appear for survey authors in the user's organization

07. Reflections & lessons
Reflections & lessons

Oh, did you expect another punchy title? I'm sorry, I used all my creativity on the last 6 sections!


Jokes aside, thank you for reading this far (or if you scrolled through most of this case study that's okay too, I know you've probably read 20 of these things today).


This project journey was rewarding, not only just because it shipped, but also for its lessons in adaptability, cross-collaboration, and early-project planning.


Below are some moments that stood out to me:

Reflections

  • Looking back, I would've leveraged a cross-functional MoSCoW-like workshop to better weigh what we view as must haves and should haves and know where to focus our efforts


  • I feel I could've proposed a better compromise for the drafting feature, perhaps just allowing one user at a time to view drafts via a lockout system. This may have allowed us to keep a drafting section and be aligned with user feedback

Lessons

  • Sometimes (read: often), design requires you to work within constraints and know when to compromise


  • Project partners also have needs, goals, and motivations that should be considered, just like users


  • Speaking with stakeholders often can create better alignment and help speed up design


01. Keep your users close
Users were reluctant to adopt Pulse

Based on previous feedback, current users were reluctant to adopt Pulse without the ability to control and customize org-wide survey content

Our hypothesis

We believed that allowing for deeper customization would support users' longer-term adoption of the product.

Talking to customers

To verify our hypothesis, we interviewed our current users/customers to gain insights and understand more about who they are and their needs as HR Admins.

“ I wish we could make templates our own to allow managers to select something that's been thought through on our side. ”

“ I wish we could make templates our own to allow managers to select something that's been thought through on our side. ”

Pulse user, HR Admin

Pulse user, HR Admin