From 2021 to 2022, I served as a Product Designer at Microsoft, leading the vision and research for two related shopping projects: Microsoft Groceries and Start Shopping Deals. These initiatives marked Microsoft’s entry into the competitive digital deals market, with the goal of helping users save money on groceries more effectively than current options.

My role spanned the entire product lifecycle, from initial concept validation through launch, requiring me to balance design leadership, strategic research, and collaboration with cross-functional teams.

The Challenge: Defining an Unproven Market Opportunity

When I joined the project, my team had identified a potential opportunity in the grocery and deals space, which secured funding for the project. Despite this market opportunity, I still had questions regarding user needs, competitive positioning, and the specific problems we (as Microsoft) could uniquely solve for our customer base. The challenge wasn’t just designing an intuitive and delightful interface; it was determining what features should take priority and what our broader vision should be.

My core questions were:

• What unmet needs existed in users’ current grocery shopping, online deals-finding, and traditional coupon clipping behaviors?
• How did existing solutions (both competitor apps and traditional methods) fall short? Where was the friction?
• What would motivate users to adopt a Microsoft solution in this space?
• How could we differentiate in a crowded market dominated by established players and long-standing consumer habits?

The Ask: Build a grocery product for Microsoft consumers that seamlessly integrates into Edge and Microsoft Rewards, empowering users to save more on everyday purchases.

Phase 1: Discovery & Vision

I conducted competitive analysis of 6+ major players in the grocery and deals space, documenting their feature sets, user flows, and value propositions. This wasn’t just cataloging what existed; I analyzed gaps in the market, identifying where competitors struggled with user experience or failed to address specific use cases. I used these insights to help influence the backlog and plan post-V1 enhancements.

Simultaneously, I had free rein over the design vision. I drew inspiration from competitors, design resources, and internal Microsoft design libraries to create mood boards for the final UI. The aim was to express ‘freshness’ through vibrant greens and open white space, emphasizing action buttons and featuring enlarged product visuals for better scanability.

Phase 2: Concept Validation

Equipped with competitor insights, I defined three distinct product vision concepts, each representing a different strategic approach to how users might navigate the deals savings app and website. I created high-fidelity mockups and prototypes for each concept, focusing on mobile. I then conducted evaluative research with users virtually through UXLabs, measuring not just usability but strategic fit: Which concept aligned with how users actually wanted to find and view grocery deals? Which concepts did users understand most clearly?

After gathering the research, my team and I presented the work in our larger recurring team meeting, allowing stakeholders to view the concepts and provide feedback.

Phase 3: Navigating Complexity and Trade-offs

With validated direction, my role evolved into managing the product strategy and design production. I maintained hands-on design involvement, ensuring that strategic decisions translated into coherent user experiences through continuous prioritization based on user value, technical feasibility, and business goals.

Usability Testing and Iterative Refinement

I conducted several rounds of usability testing throughout the design process, each focused on different aspects of the experience. Early testing focused on core task completion and navigation; later rounds examined edge cases and the learning curve for new users.

One critical finding was that users struggled with the initial setup flow for Microsoft Groceries. Testing feedback indicated that the original design created confusion and friction before users experienced any value. Working with engineering partners, I redesigned the onboarding process to be progressive, allowing users to view all available deals and partnered stores immediately, without setup, and triggering setup only when the user took action. We A/B tested the two flows to validate this decision, and the revised onboarding showed significantly higher completion rates.

Measuring Success and Driving Continuous Improvement

Microsoft Groceries launched successfully, representing Microsoft’s first entry into this product category. The features achieved:

• Millions of active users within the first six months post-launch
• 87% net-promoter score based on research feedback with final designs
• Recognition as a “first for Microsoft” in integrating grocery planning and deals discovery into the broader Microsoft ecosystem

Beyond these metrics, the project established patterns for how Microsoft could enter new product categories through strategic integration rather than standalone apps, an approach that influenced subsequent product decisions across the organization.

Expanding to Start Shopping Deals

Following the successful launch of Microsoft Groceries, we integrated the grocery experience into Microsoft’s universal mini-app feed within the Microsoft Start app (previously known as the MSN app), designed to surface shopping-related content and deals.

This expansion required adapting the standalone grocery experience to coexist within a broader shopping ecosystem. I led the design work to bridge Microsoft Groceries and the Start Shopping feed, creating a unified “Deals Hub” mini-app that allowed users to seamlessly navigate between grocery-specific deals and broader shopping opportunities. This integration demonstrated how focused product experiences could scale into Microsoft’s larger platform strategy, creating a cohesive shopping destination rather than isolated features.

Reflection and Growth

This project fundamentally shaped my understanding of the intersection between design, research, and product management. I learned that effective product leadership requires moving fluidly between strategic thinking and tactical execution, between understanding market dynamics and perfecting interaction details.

Looking back, I’ve seen how quickly this landscape shifts. By 2024, Bing began embedding coupon codes directly within search results. Were I to approach this problem space now, I’d frame it entirely differently. Rather than benchmarking against other deals products, I’d analyze how evolving search and AI ecosystems redefine the way users find, compare, and act on savings opportunities.

One aspect I would revisit is acknowledging that these features would require further development post-launch. If I were to redo this project today, I would create component libraries and interaction patterns designed to scale. I would also document the design rationale for key decisions more thoroughly, ensuring that future designers could understand not just what we built, but why we built it that way. This documentation became crucial when the team expanded post-launch and new designers needed to contribute to the features.

Working across disciplines and translating between design, engineering, and business stakeholders reinforced that successful products emerge from collaboration, not individual heroics. My role was often less about having all the answers and more about asking the right questions, facilitating productive discussions, and ensuring decisions were grounded in user needs and business reality.

The skills I developed—conducting research that drives decisions, managing complex roadmaps, leading cross-functional teams, and balancing user needs with business constraints—are the foundation of how I approach product leadership today.

I appreciate the talented Microsoft team that worked on this project, as well as the individuals who provided their time and insights during the research. Their collaboration made these features possible and offered me important lessons on creating products that truly meet people’s needs.