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Windows 8.1 Smartsearch

 

GOAL

The goal was to deliver a brilliantly helpful, clean, and graphic view of relevant information so users could quick find what they are looking for, so they can search less and do more.  For entities, we delivered the "Hero" experience to create an eye-catching app-like flow experience to capture users with easily consumable content. 

 

APPROACH

Conceptualized and executed on how we could aggregate and package Bing's entertainment content into Win 8.1. Brainstormed multiple interaction and visual designs that led to the final shipped version. Collaborated with PM and Dev stakeholders to create a coherent system experience. 

For Windows 8.1, we had an opportunity to rethink search by embedding it into the OS. During our brainstorms we asked: How can Bing surface and structure relevant content – drawing from the web and apps on-the-fly — for easier entertainment browsing and lookup?  How could content flexibly scale across multiple screen resolutions, orientations, and split screens which Windows OS supports.  

We conducted multiple Initial brainstormings to start with. We also created various low-fi mocks to see how the search results appear including the entity pane and search results content like algos/related searches. 

 

MID FI UI DESIGN DETAILING  

Created multiple explorations of various search UI modules and how they will work together and scale. We also started ideating on key differentiating features that would make the windows search stand out. This includes exploring visual and UI elements like: 

  • Full bleed images and getting color from the image to use within the layout. 
  • Edge to edge columns. 
  • Overlap to create interest with layers.
  • Big type for facts.

FINAL UX

We started looking into visual polishing. Making sure the grid, type, icons etc are in sync and work seamlessly. I specifically was in charge of portrait mode implementation and made sure that the grid and visual hierarchy of contents works well in that mode. 

 

Role: Senior Designer. Designers from Bing & Windows collaborated and worked togather on this large scale project. 

Reference Links: 

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2013/10/16/building-bing-smart-search-for-windows-8-1/

https://blogs.bing.com/search/2013/10/18/unwrapping-windows-8-1-bing-smart-search