Microsoft Video Editor

For over 3 years, I worked on the design team for the video editor built into the Windows 10 Photos app. It started life as a simple tool for automatically generating montage videos from your photo collection, and grew to become an easy-to-use storyboard-based video editor targeted at students and teachers.

Developing an app that is part of the largest desktop operating system in the world is a rare challenge – and a unique opportunity. Our design team worked as part of a well-oiled machine that allowed our app to ship to millions of customers every month while using data and experimentation to guide our decisions. And as part of the Microsoft Fluent design system, we supported a full array of interaction methods (mouse, touch, pen, keyboard), device types, and accessibility & compliance requirements.

Our team did all our own design research and user testing – we felt it was very important that everyone making the product hear directly from our users about their needs and how our design solutions could meet those needs. This included feedback submitted from Windows users as well as meeting in person with teachers and students.

One of the key jobs of the designer on a team is to create a clear product vision. By presenting tangible visual designs and user experience flows, each team member goes from having their own idea of a feature in their head to a shared understanding that everyone can agree on. I used modern design tools like Figma to create interactive prototypes, and occasionally After Effects when I needed to demonstrate more nuanced interaction behaviors.