Outlook Web Access is the online companion to Microsoft Office Outlook, both powered by Microsoft Exchange 2007. The application provides e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks for information workers. My work is focused on the Outlook Web Access Premium client, designed for use with Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7.

As a UI Design Program Manager, I write the functional specifications that define the user experience and also create the visuals for the screen elements with input from the feature teams for each area. I work closely with other OWA program managers, developers and test engineers to design usage scenarios, review and finalize the feature designs and ensure correct implementation and functionality for each of the product features. This process includes collaboration with the user research and marketing departments, writers, and other program managers from the Office Outlook team. My work also includes visual specification for errors, informational alerts, notifications and overall product design consistency. Some features I own are: Mail, Conversation View, Automatic Name Resolution, Logon, Out of Office Assistant, Change Password, Reminders, New Mail Notification, Search, and more.

For this upcoming release, the user interface was redesigned with a focus on increasing productivity for the information worker. To accomplish this, we’ve reduced the number of clicks required to get tasks done by removing dialogs and incorporating actions and responses in place. We’ve removed all pop-up notifications and incorporated them into the main window, providing access on demand. We’ve enhanced drag and drop functionality, improved and expanded the right-click context menus, integrated errors contextually with more helpful error strings, and included explanatory text and Help for new features where necessary. The product redesign includes a fresh look and feel that's streamlined for the online user experience.

Here's an example of some of the new OWA12 features, presented as a post for the Exchange team blog.