Microsoft Single Column Feed

My Roles & Responsibilities

My responsibilities included user research, product strategy, aligning stakeholders on product goals, designing user flows, interaction design, prototyping, user testing, quality assurance, and creating design guidelines.

Context

Microsoft Start is a news aggregator website and mobile app that features news headlines and articles that MSN editors have chosen. The app includes sections for top stories, regional events, international events, politics, money, technology, entertainment, opinion, sports, and crime, along with other miscellaneous stories

The problem

Only 50% of DAU/Visitors engage with the current grid experience. User research proved that most users jump off to social heavy experiences like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Reddit.

Ad and content experience optimized for Top heavy page

  • No user interaction past first row/InfoPane

  • Too many moving stories, lack of predictability and focus

Relevance and personalization is a challenge 

  • Personalizing across 4 or 5 columns of content 

  • Reliance on editorial programming

Why aren’t users engaging with the feed?

Only when scanning objects in a list layout, research has shown that the following are true:

  • Users scan objects in the "F" layout

  • Lists are optimized for fast scanning and location of an object

  • Works best for information that has a defined order (e.g. alphabetized, ranked, numbered, by date, etc.)

  • Common themes around right rail span between topics interests to follow and personalized display ads 

Hypothesis

A modern feed optimized for focused content consumption and promoting community actions, will engage better with our users and help attract new user segments building daily habits.​

Engage

  • Higher Scroll rates through the feed​

  • Higher video consumption via inline player​

  • Higher CTR on Content and Ads due to better relevance and recommendations​

New user segments

  • Higher Scroll rates through the feed​

  • Higher video consumption via inline player​

  • Higher CTR on Content and Ads due to better relevance and recommendations​

Wireframing & Content Architecture Exploration

Explored different content frameworks through a series of low- to mid-fidelity wireframes, experimenting with hierarchy, density, and module sequencing. Worked closely with product partners to evaluate how each variation impacted scrolling patterns, card engagement, and the readability of the overall feed.

Validating the Direction Through A/B Testing

Launched an MLP to A/B test our early concepts directly in-market. Delivering a minimal but realistic version of the experience allowed us to gather behavioral data, validate our direction, and determine which patterns should shape the long-term North Star vision.

Continue to build towards a North Star

Shifting to a single-column feed brought us closer to the North Star vision for a cleaner, more human-centered Microsoft Edge news experience. By reducing density and modernizing the layout, we saw the experience instantly resonate with users:

  • Scrolls/UU up 25.83%

  • Browser minutes up 1.36%

  • CI DAU up 0.66%

This direction also strengthened engagement across Pivots (+11%), InfoPane (+2.66%), and ad cards (+8%, +5% revenue), reinforcing that we’re building toward the right long-term ecosystem.