PATENT-WORTHY INNOVATION: TIMELINES
Company: Microsoft
Project: Defining the Core Interaction Model (7 Patents)
Role: Senior UX Designer (Vision Lead)
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Patent-Winning Timeline Interaction: Vision & Design Leadership
The Problem: No Native Project Tracking in Outlook
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Office 365 lacked a native, efficient way to visualize and track project milestones. Users had to leave the core Outlook experience to manage projects, creating friction and reducing platform engagement. The goal was to define a new, integrated visualization model that fit seamlessly into the calendar environment.
The How: Defining a New Interaction Model
As Senior Designer and Vision Lead, I drove the design of the core interaction model and defined its business value for O365. This included:
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Partnering cross-functionally with research, PM, development, and leadership to define how calendar items could be visualized and interacted with in a novel timeline view.
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Designing the user experience for quickly viewing, editing, or canceling items directly from the timeline.
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Creating a simple way to share the timeline via email, which became a highly adopted feature.
The Solution: Patent-Worthy Design and Platform Integration
The Timelines feature launched as a new tool for productivity and project tracking, recognized for its technical and interaction innovation.
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7 patents were awarded for the work, highlighting the originality and strategic value of the design.
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Established a pattern for milestone tracking that was intuitive and highly adoptable.
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Demonstrated the ability to lead vision, define interaction models, and deliver mission-critical platform features.
