Microsoft Office Content.

The goal of this project was to scale the creation of high-quality design templates for PowerPoint’s "Design Ideas" feature, enhancing user experience by providing more visually engaging and professional options.

Role: Design Manager

I managed recruitment, training, and oversight for a team of design contractors, ensuring quality, timely delivery, and seamless integration with engineering.

The Challenge

PowerPoint’s "Design Ideas" feature was designed to help users create polished presentations quickly by suggesting layouts and styles. However, the existing design suggestions often felt uninspired and failed to meet users’ expectations for modern, engaging templates.

Key Problems

  • Lack of visual sophistication in suggested designs.

  • Limited variety in available layouts, resulting in a subpar user experience.

  • Need for a scalable solution to generate large quantities of high-quality templates quickly.

Process

Mood Boards: Established creative direction through collaborative mood boards.

Template Creation: Translated mood boards into multiple layout options, balancing creativity and functionality.

Final Variations: Developed final designs with multiple variations to feed into the system for seamless user integration:

Parallel Efforts

To elevate the “Design Ideas” feature further, I oversaw workstreams for:

  • Custom Illustrations: I collaborated with illustrators to create bespoke visuals, adding a unique touch to templates.

  • Photo Library Expansion: I worked with the team to build a robust library of modern, high-quality photography to support the new templates.