Microsoft Fabric

For several years I designed data analytics experiences: systems where people look for an answer inside enormous amounts of information that keeps streaming in live. A machine that stopped on the production line, unusual traffic on the network, a jump in sales that happened two minutes ago.

The technology underneath the product was originally built as an internal Microsoft tool, for engineers who write queries. It was very powerful, but getting anything out of it meant knowing exactly what to ask and how to phrase it in a query language. My job was to turn it into a product a whole organisation could work with.

The personas I designed for sat at two ends. On one side a technical user who writes their own queries and wants full control, with the interface hiding nothing from them. On the other a business analyst who will not touch a line of code, and wants to see a graph that answers their question.

Both work in the same product, sometimes on the same screen. Most of the design decisions came out of that tension.

The bulk of my work was on two things: the product's dashboard, where data becomes a picture you can read at a glance, and the query experience itself.

Alongside those I designed two experiences the product did not have before, when it was query-based only:

• The product's first Copilot experience, which lets you ask a question in plain language instead of composing a query
• Low-code experiences, which get you to an answer without writing code at all

Both aimed at the same thing: lowering the cost of entry without taking anything away from the users who do know how to write.

At Microsoft Ignite, Satya Nadella presented screens from this work on stage.