INTRO TO MICROSOFT
Microsoft is one of the world's largest enterprise software companies. During my six-month contract I worked across two parallel tracks: designing a new issue management portal for small and medium business customers, and expanding the internal Fluent UI component library with dark mode, high-contrast, and accessibility enhancements.
THE CHALLENGE
The existing Microsoft support portal had been designed for large enterprise customers with dedicated support staff and a high volume of active licences. Smaller business customers using it encountered a system that didn't reflect their scale, their needs, or their available resources. The brief was to design a new portal that guided SMB customers toward self-service resolution — reducing support costs while improving the experience for a segment that had been underserved.
THE PROCESS
I started with a thorough review of the existing user research and customer pain point data — understanding where SMB customers were dropping out of the support flow, what information they needed at each step, and where the existing portal created confusion or unnecessary effort.
From that review I produced a series of wireframes mapping the end-to-end support flow, with particular attention to reducing the length and cognitive load of the ticket creation process. The goal was to make submitting a support issue feel manageable rather than bureaucratic. Wireframes were reviewed by stakeholders and validated with user interviews before moving to high-fidelity design.
Each screen was designed at desktop, tablet, and mobile breakpoints, using the existing Fluent UI component library. The portal went live before the end of my contract and received positive feedback from the users who tested it.
DESIGN SYSTEM UPDATE
In parallel with the portal, the team asked me to expand the internal component library to include dark mode and high-contrast themes — both accessibility requirements and increasingly expected by enterprise users who spend long hours in complex software environments.
THE PROCESS
I rebuilt each component in every required state — default, hover, focus, active, error, disabled — across standard, dark, and high-contrast modes. Every component went through accessibility validation: color contrast ratios checked against WCAG AA and AAA standards, ARIA labels reviewed, and responsiveness tested across breakpoints.
The Fluent design system is built around five principles — light, depth, motion, material, and scale. Dark mode and high contrast don't simply invert colors; they require rethinking how depth and elevation are communicated when you remove the light-based shadow system the standard theme relies on. That problem required design judgment, not just color swaps.
THE OUTCOME
By the end of the contract I had delivered new color modes and accessibility documentation for the component library, and completed the full design for the SMB support portal. Both shipped during my engagement.
The Microsoft project was formative for how I think about accessibility — not as a compliance layer applied at the end, but as a design constraint that, handled correctly, produces better interfaces for everyone. High-contrast themes built for low-vision users turned out to be preferred by some developers on late-night shifts. Accessible interaction states built for keyboard navigation improved the experience for power users who never touch a mouse. Inclusion and usability are the same problem.
