Windows 365: Building Design from Zero to One

In 2020, Microsoft set out to put Windows in the cloud as a SaaS product. Windows 365 would let customers access a full Windows PC from any device, anywhere—no VDI expertise required.

I joined to lead design for this zero-to-one product. What I found was a team in need of direction. That's the challenge I'd been looking for.

Building a product and building a team are the same work. You can't ship great experiences without a team that has clarity, ownership, and shared purpose.

The Challenge

The design team had been pulled together from other projects with no shared mission. Designers were working on areas they weren't passionate about. The product organization lacked clear processes. Quality suffered from unclear ownership and shifting priorities.

Business problems were clear:

SMBs wanted clarity in pricing, easy device management, and familiar experiences
Enterprises needed quick access to custom devices and integration with existing management tools
The market was hungry for VDI without the overhead

Design problems were equally clear:

No design system foundation—what existed couldn't scale
Visual design lacked polish and consistency
Slow, cumbersome user experiences
Low quality from shifting priorities and unclear ownership

Original Windows 365 interface before redesign — The original Windows 365 home screen—functional, but lacking clarity and polish

My Approach

Listen First, Act Second

I didn't rush in with assumptions. I spent time with partners, the design team, and leadership to understand where the product stood and what the team actually needed. We studied competitors, our existing offering, and emerging VDI companies to understand the landscape we were competing in. That groundwork shaped everything that followed.

Build Team Culture Through Action

The first issue: no clear mission or principles to guide the work. The team felt lost. I ran a workshop to establish shared values and ways of working. We created team principles together—not handed down, but built as a group. That's how you create buy-in. I made sure to live those principles daily: sharing my own work in critiques, bringing partners together, running weekly standups to keep us aligned.

Create Ownership Through Organization

Our designers were excellent, but shifting priorities had them working outside their strengths. I reorganized based on expertise: End User Experiences—high-quality, simple experiences for people connecting to their Cloud PC; and Enterprise Service Management—complex workflows requiring strong interaction design and tight partnerships across teams. Clear ownership gave designers the clarity to do their best work.

Establish Process Where None Existed

The product team was thrilled to have design support but lacked clear working processes. I drafted a monthly design rhythm of business to set priority, clarify work in progress, and align with the broader team's cadence. We integrated our design process into Azure DevOps and moved to a monthly ship cadence. This reduced friction and kept everyone moving together.

Raising the Quality Bar

Because our team was small, I stepped in directly to build out the design system foundation. We focused on the basics that would enable growth: typography, whitespace, hierarchy, color, and grid.

Windows 365 typography system — Typography system—establishing hierarchy and consistency

Windows 365 color palette — Color system—accessible and scalable palette

Beyond foundations, we built core components: Cloud PC cards, quick actions, left navigation, dialogs, error states, list controls, and illustration style. Every element was designed to scale.

Updated Windows 365 home screen — The redesigned home screen—cleaner hierarchy, clearer actions

New Cloud PC card design — The new Cloud PC card—more informative, better organized

Windows 365 welcome experience — The welcome experience—a user's first impression of their Cloud PC

The Outcome

We shipped new processes and design direction in 3 months. Windows 365 released to General Availability in August 2021.

We hit our subscription limit in the first 48 hours—customers loved the simplicity.

Gartner Magic Quadrant showing Microsoft as a leader — Named leader in Gartner's Device as a Service Magic Quadrant

48 hrsHit subscription limit

64%ARR growth in year one

1M+Launch video views

What people said:

"Windows 365 capabilities allow you to get the same benefits of virtual desktops, as far as scalability and security, without the overhead of a more complex solution."
— Shannon Kalvar, IDC

"This offering could potentially be the breakthrough for VDI and desktops-as-a-service, which have a lot of promise for the future of work."
— Holger Mueller, Constellation

"Game changer... the future of Windows is here."
— Rob Enderle

What I Learned

Slow down to speed up.

Taking time to listen, understand, and build foundations paid dividends. Rushing to ship without clarity would have cost us more in rework and confusion.

Culture gets built in the day-to-day.

Team principles only matter if you live them. I made sure to model the behavior I wanted to see—sharing work, taking feedback, staying hands-on.

Ownership enables quality.

Designers do their best work when they have clear ownership in areas they care about. Organizing around expertise unlocked the team's potential.

Process reduces friction, not creativity.

A clear rhythm of business and integration with engineering tools meant less time in meetings and more time doing the work.