bing page redesign

My Role

As a member of the Brand Team, we were tasked to work with feature teams and take on our own features to be implemented in the various stages of the redesign. My major focus was on query hierarchy, page layouts for various answer types, the carousel and Pole Position features, and support for the implementation of Bing in Windows 8 and Xbox.

Kickoff

We took a pie in the sky approach to coming up with features and page elements to enhance results on the page, be more inclusive of social media, hierarchy of results, and click-through engagement.. With a group of about 15 designers, we collectively put our ideas literally on the wall to discuss and select elements that we felt would reach these goals.

Base Design

Collaborating with the Feature PM team, Dev Team, Research, and Testing we took the ideas from the kickoff and created a base layout, . This gave us valuable knowledge of the requirements for the types of pages required for each of the specific queries. The page was whittled down to a base structure while we continued to iterate and add in new features.

All of the answer types were then categories and working with the dev team, CSS values and a library of elements was created to endure a cohesive experience across all answer page scenarios.  

Bing Pole Postion - US Patent award for Prominence in search

Bing Pole position was born as an idea of using the top of the screen to showcase a definitive search result for queries that had a definite answer such as weather, flight information, specific stocks, and events - etc.

Concerns and research

Monetization of the site is dependent on advertisement and click-throughs. In researching this type of answer, we did a serines of A/B studies and segments of real time users to measure both click-through rates, and rates of abandonment. In the case of abandonment we used more detailed study information to see if it occurred due to the user finding the answer they needed or was it they found it unfamiliar or not trustworthy. Eye tracking was also used to see if the user glossed over it as an advertisement rather than an assemblage of information from various sources.

Explorations/answer types

Pole position Special Events with interactive content

Special events, such as the elections shown below required flexible content highlighting the answer. In the case of elections this became a mini site driving the user to explore additional related content

Holiday events

Tied to the homepage, the pole was used also in entertaining ways for holidays. These answers were meant for fun to drive traffic to events and related answers. The example shown below is the rotating set of Halloween headers that were driven initially from the homepage.

Bing in Windows

Explorations of how Bing can be integrated into the Windows 8.1 format using color detection to add a dynamic view of the page and horizontal scrolling for use on the Surface Device

Bing in Xbox

Integration of search in Xbox using the proposed layout used for Windows. Modifications made for the various types of content including social media.

Bing Placement in new release of Robocop

Working with the Marketing team and the studios we took updated logo ideas and created a futuristic view of search results to be placed in the vision field of Robocop.

Miscellaneous Icons and supporting pages

A collection of various logos used for presentations, release versions, and swag for release events. This included t-shirts for the studio, all templates for web and email, illustrations for help, and studio posters (not shown due to access of the older files).

Bing Release Logos

Bing Fund Venture capital Page mocks

About

Bing Fund is an angel fund and incubator program launched by Microsoft looking for startups that are building online or mobile experiences that incorporate fresh insights.

role

I was tasked to work directly with the Bing Fund team to create a new site structure and visuals that would then be a base for the team to insert their promotional copy and updates. I also worked with the team to assist with image acquisitions and a brand consistent with the Bing logo (of that time period).