Making Edge Personal with GenAI
Creating user growth through delightful personalization with generative AI.
Context
A browser is among the most frequently used apps on any device, with users typically spending more than 50% of their time on it on a personal computer. To enhance their experience, users seek meaningful ways to personalize their browser—tailored to how they use it, what they prioritize, and how they express their individuality through the product. Traditional personalization options, however, are often limited and restrictive, leaving users desiring more diverse and creative ways to make the browser their own.
Research
Data from the past has consistently shown that the more users personalize their browser, the more time they tend to spend using it. Additionally, users frequently provided feedback expressing a strong desire for more personalization options in the Edge browser. This clear evidence motivated us to invest significantly in expanding personalization capabilities, particularly through the use of generative AI.
Vision
Microsoft Designer and DALL-E enable users to generate images from text prompts, unlocking powerful creative possibilities. Recognizing the potential, it became essential to integrate Image Creator seamlessly with other personalization features. This integration aimed to empower users to design unique, one-of-a-kind themes and showcase them to a broader community. The functionality needed to be accessible across various touchpoints, such as Settings, the What’s New page, and the Bing homepage. To address this opportunity, we designed an experience that could scale effortlessly across these surfaces.
Design Principles:
Faster time to value
Encourage exploration
High-quality aesthetics while aligning with Design System
Clarity and control for users
Scalability across the system
The designs underwent multiple iterations and explorations, balancing different levels of user engagement while ensuring consistency with existing design patterns. This complexity was heightened by concurrent updates to the Settings page, New Tab page, and What’s New page, requiring close collaboration with partner teams.
To accelerate progress, we leveraged whiteboarding, rapid wire-framing, and early stakeholder alignment sessions. Visual design and treatments were developed after finalizing direction, information architecture, and foundational flows, ensuring alignment across all teams.
This agile approach in a multifaceted stakeholder environment stands out as a significant achievement, demonstrating the team’s ability to deliver high-quality, scalable solutions amidst complexity.
Execution
After finalizing the design, the implementation was carefully phased to ensure a seamless user experience without causing confusion or disruption. Minor adjustments were made to the design to maintain continuity across future updates, but these changes were minimal and did not compromise the core experience.
Impact
The feature was an instant hit, with over a million users adopting themes within the first month of release. Positive PR further boosted engagement, driving continued growth in usage numbers. Additionally, the new color picker introduced as part of this overhaul saw over 250,000 adoptions within the same timeframe. User feedback was overwhelmingly positive, reflected in highly favorable OCVs, highlighting the success of the feature.
