Microsoft Demo Management System
Design of a new platform for managing Microsoft's in-store PC demos across 25,000 retail stores, replacing two disconnected legacy tools.
Overview
The Demo Management System powers every product demo you see on a Windows PC in a retail store such as Best Buy, MediaMarkt, FNAC, JB Hi-Fi, and dozens more. Microsoft admins, OEM partners like Dell and HP, and retail operators all use it to create, customize, target, and deploy localized demo experiences. I owned end-to-end UX strategy, user research, product requirements, and high-fidelity design for the full platform redesign.
25K+
Retail Stores
210K+
Devices Managed
30+
OEM & Retail
Partners
The Challenge
Behind the scenes, the content management workflows were breaking down, and partners were starting to walk away.
Everything depended on two admins.
Partners couldn't act on their own. Every SKU fix, targeting change, and content update had to pass through one of two Microsoft admins, and many partner staff were blocked from the system by their own IT policies.
“Can I have my team use DMS instead of relying on Daniel or Pau?”
OEM partner
Content was built by hand, with no preview
SKU mapping lived in Excel and configuration in raw JSON. There was no way to preview content in the system, so teams guessed at the result or drove to a store to see how it actually looked on a device.
"We don't know if the targeting or text will appear correctly until we see it on an actual device."
Content manager
Targeting was guesswork
Setting up a demo meant stepping through platform, OEM, model, and region with unclear priority rules and no way to exclude specific devices. Mistakes meant shoppers saw the wrong demo, or none at all.
"Targeting is not intuitive; we need to guess the hierarchy."
OEM partner
Localization didn't scale
Language and region weren't handled as distinct parameters, so translations were mapped by hand in separate spreadsheets, with no way to preview localized text before it shipped to a market.
"Localization is a huge problem. Language should be treated as a region."
Partner
Collaboration happened outside the system
Feedback and multi-level approvals ran through Teams, email, and PowerPoint, with no inline commenting, version control, or audit trail. Sign-off was slow and easy to lose track of.
"Everything happens via email and PPT, very messy."
OEM partner
There was no data to learn from
No dwell time, no interaction tracking, no A/B testing, and no way to connect a content change to a result. Every optimization decision came down to guesswork.
"We don't know what's working and what isn't. We need more data."
OEM marketing manager
Research & Discovery
I led a multi-method research effort to ground the redesign in real user needs — then synthesized it into the jobs-to-be-done framework below.
7 stakeholder interviews
5 Microsoft RDX, 1 Field team, 1 OEM partner
5 research methods
Research methods, from interviews to telemetry analysis
11 jobs · 43 stories
Broken into job stories, each with clear success metrics
10 finding themes
Each priority-rated with stakeholders
AI in the workflow
I used ChatGPT to help organize the research matrix I was working on, verify the themes I pulled from seven interview transcripts, and assist with drafting the research report. A week of affinity mapping became two days. ChatGPT worked like a fast research assistant. The analysis and conclusions stayed mine.
How the research was run
The jobs to be done
Every main job is broken into sub-jobs and job stories that capture the context, motivation, and desired outcome behind each task. Together, they form the backbone of the redesign, keeping every feature tied to a real user need rather than a guess. Open any job to see its sub-jobs.
Set up content models & partner data
7 job stories
Create & customize demo experiences
4 job stories
Preview & test demo content
3 job stories
Manage targeting & deployment
4 job stories
Review & approve content
3 job stories
Access telemetry & analytics
5 job stories
Ensure security & access control
3 job stories
Facilitate collaboration & communication
3 job stories
Run ad campaigns
3 job stories
Manage device provisioning & configuration
6 job stories
Deploy content to offline environments
2 job stories
Personas
Three core personas drove the redesign, each carrying a distinct pain that blocked their work. Mapping every persona to their specific frustration and the solution that resolved it kept the product grounded in real needs. Read across each row to follow the thread from person, to problem, to fix.
Persona
Microsoft Admin
Govern the platform and keep global demos accurate — without being everyone’s bottleneck.
The pain
Mapped SKUs by hand in Excel, hand-edited JSON to configure targeting, and personally fielded every partner change request.
How we solved it
Guided targeting, bulk SKU import, and role-based workflows that let partners self-serve while admins keep oversight.
Persona
Brand Partner (OEM)
Publish on-brand, localized demos for my products on my own schedule.
The pain
Locked out by IT policies and boxed into rigid templates — waiting on a Microsoft admin for every edit and brand tweak.
How we solved it
Secure external roles, flexible brand templates, and in-platform localization with live preview.
Persona
Retail Partner
Keep in-store demos current and correct, even where connectivity is unreliable.
The pain
No offline workflow and no preview — errors only surfaced on the physical device once it was already in the store.
How we solved it
Downloadable offline packages, store-level targeting, and device-accurate previews before deployment.
Key Decisions
How I triaged the work
Three steps took the research from pain points to a build order.
Step 1 · Frame the jobs
Framed as jobs to be done
Every pain point from research became a job story with a clear desired outcome — so the roadmap described real user goals across all three personas, not a wishlist of features.
Step 2 · Anchor to metrics
Anchored to success metrics
Each job carried a concrete target — CSAT, customer-effort score, fewer post-live errors, fewer support tickets — defining what success had to look like before anything was called done.
Step 3 · Score impact against effort
Impact came from the research: how many jobs and personas a feature unblocked and how often the pain was cited in interviews. Effort was scored with the development lead. Where a feature landed decided its tier.
Lower impact ↑ Higher impact
Ship first
Foundation bets
Easy adds, later
Defer
Lower effort → Higher effort
P0 · Must
ships first
P1 · Should
next iteration
P2 · Nice
future backlog
One unified platform. I designed a single platform with role-based views over a shared data model, so each persona saw only what they needed at each step.
Microsoft Admin
Governance, approvals, telemetry oversight
Brand Partner (OEM)
Brand management, campaigns, localization
Retail Partner
Store operations, device provisioning, offline
Companies
Brands
Product Series
Models
Features
Campaigns
Navigation mirrors the data hierarchy, so the system’s mental model is legible to new users regardless of role.
Evaluating build vs. buy for the CMS foundation. My competitive analysis made a clear case for adopting an existing headless CMS: content modeling, permissions, and localization were already solved. I partnered with engineering and program management to make the call: build in house for long term ownership, without reinventing what the market had solved. I scoped the custom build around what was unique to our domain (targeting rules, device preview simulation, telemetry integration, offline deployment) and applied the patterns I’d benchmarked to the CMS foundation. Feature prioritization sat with me as the documented approver.
Defining what we wouldn’t build for MVP. With an enterprise CMS touching global partners, the feature surface area was enormous. The most impactful decision was documenting what we would not build for the first release, with rationale for each deferral.
In for Release 1
Unified partner, SKU & store management
Closes manual, scattered tooling
Guided targeting interface
Closes targeting guesswork
Integrated localization workflows
Closes localization that didn’t scale
Preview & testing environment
Closes no preview before launch
In-platform review & approval
Closes collaboration outside the system
Telemetry dashboards & analytics
Closes no data to learn from
Deferred, with rationale
A/B testing & experimentation
Needs a telemetry baseline to test against first
Advanced offline deployment
Affects a small set of low connectivity stores, manual packages bridge the gap
Automated content optimization
Requires engagement data the platform is only now collecting
Brand customization controls
Templates cover the majority case at launch
Each deferral was documented in the PRD, which I built and maintained with ChatGPT as a living document.
Progressive disclosure over feature density. A platform serving three user types across 30+ partners could easily overwhelm. Simple defaults, advanced options on demand: first-time partners get guided onboarding, power users get full targeting depth. That lowered the adoption barrier the research identified without slowing experienced users.
Design Solution
I designed the DMS interface in Microsoft's Fluent 2 design system, delivering high-fidelity screens in light and dark themes. The research and PRD were strong enough to skip low-fidelity work. I used Bolt and ChatGPT to prototype complex controls like the targeting interface, testing several directions in hours instead of days, then built the winner in Figma.
Rather than walking through the design chronologically, I've organized the solution around the core problems it addresses.
Self-Service Content Creation
Before: Content creation required Microsoft admins to manually assemble demos using spreadsheets for data, PowerPoint for layouts, and JSON for configuration. Partners couldn't create or edit content independently.
After: A visual content editor lets OEM and retail partners build, customize, and publish demo experiences directly. Templates provide brand-consistent starting points; a structured content model separates content from presentation, enabling reuse across regions and devices. Partners can go from draft to published without touching a spreadsheet or waiting on an admin.
Unified Targeting & Deployment
Before: Targeting was a multi-step guessing game (platform, OEM, model, region) with unclear priority rules, no subtractive logic, and frequent errors, resulting in shoppers seeing irrelevant or missing demos.
After: A guided targeting interface with clear parameter hierarchy, validation checks, tooltips, and support for both additive and subtractive targeting. Rules-based deployment replaces manual per-asset configuration, letting partners target by region, store, device, and locale at scale.
Partner Dashboard & Role-Based Access
Before: All three user types (admins, OEMs, retailers) used the same undifferentiated interface. There was no self-service onboarding, and OEM IT policies often blocked direct access entirely.
After: A unified dashboard with role-based views surfaces the right tools for each persona. First-time partner onboarding flows guide setup step by step. The task management system gives every user a clear picture of their active work, pending reviews, and items needing attention.
Preview & Approval Workflows
Before: Previews relied on PowerPoint decks or in-store visits. Approvals happened over email and Teams, with no version history or audit trail.
After: An in-platform preview environment simulates how content will appear on actual devices across resolutions and locales. Shareable preview links replace PowerPoint decks. A built-in multi-level approval system with commenting, notifications, and version tracking keeps the entire review workflow inside the platform.
Analytics & Telemetry
Before: No integrated metrics. Teams couldn't measure demo engagement, dwell time, or content effectiveness. Every optimization decision was guesswork.
After: Integrated telemetry dashboards surface device status, content coverage, and geographic deployment data in real time. The analytics foundation gives partners and Microsoft visibility into demo performance for the first time — enabling the data-driven content optimization that was previously impossible.
Impact
The DMS 2.0 redesign transformed a fragmented, manual content pipeline into a unified, self-service platform for Microsoft's global retail demo ecosystem, leading to increased sales and a 70%+ reduction in content handoff time.
Learnings
How you define the problem determines what you build. This project started as a UX redesign for a tool was hard to use. But the research revealed something bigger: one-third of partners weren't using the platform at all. Currys and FNAC had built their own systems. Reframing this as a platform adoption crisis rather than a usability problem changed the entire scope of the redesign. From improving screens to rebuilding trust in the ecosystem. The most important design decision I made happened before I opened Figma.
The best recommendation isn't always the one that ships. I made a strong case for leveraging an existing headless CMS. The team chose to build in-house for long-term ownership. Instead of resisting, I shaped that decision - scoping the custom build around our unique differentiators and applying the patterns we'd benchmarked to the foundation. Knowing when to advocate and when to adapt is the difference between influence and stubbornness.
Scope discipline was the most impactful skill. As both Product Owner and Lead Designer, the pull toward "one more feature" came from both directions. The single most important thing I did was define and document what we wouldn't build for MVP, with clear rationale for each deferral. That discipline is what let the team ship a focused first release instead of an overloaded one.
