Seamless profile switching for work & personal use
Browser users often separate work and personal browsing by using different browsers. I designed a feature that automatically switches profiles in Edge, helping retain users for both work and personal use. As the lead designer of this feature, I was tasked to implement this feature end-to-end, which involves creating multiple prototypes, collaborating with our researcher for UX studies and aligning on north star metrics with the feature crew.
Impact: The feature supported 800K monthly users and facilitated 4.5 million switches.
Role
Product Designer
Contributions
UX/UI, research, testing
Timeline
1 month
Status
🚀 Shipped
Shipped outcome
In the initial version of this feature, it will help users easily move between work and personal profiles in the Edge browser based on the type of site that you’re navigating to.
Current Experience
The only way users can switch between browser profiles is by clicking their avatar and manually selecting the desired profile. This is suboptimal, as frequent navigation between browsers and profiles accumulates over time, leading to a blurred and collapsed separation.
Business Goals
01/ Provide unique productivity value with a separate “work browser”
Drive customers who use Edge for work to upsell Edge for personal browsing
02/ A lightly managed personal browser
Allows users to access their favorite non-work related sites and services without compromising the security or compliance of the enterprise
03/ Auto-Switching Feature
Automatically moves non-work sites to your personal browser and maintains contextual separation between user profiles
I explored these visual considerations when it comes to the profile switching notification, going from the more confident/transient UI to the less confident, UI in order to hone in on a solution.
Research
To find out which browser switching experience is better for helping users automatically open certain websites in their desired browser profile (prototype 1 or 2), and to understand which scenarios users with multiple profiles would prefer.
Results: Split 50/50.
Hypotheses
We believe giving in-context profile/browser switch mechanisms will help customers stay organized when using multiple profiles in both Personal and Work browsing scenarios.
Method
Moderated interviews
Prototype 1
When users type the Target URL, they see the option “Switch to personal,” which opens the site in their personal profile.
Once the new window opens, Edge confirms the action with a message in the top left corner. Users can change their profile preference via a drop-down menu in the same notification card.
The identity control at the top left allows users to manage which profile opens specific websites.
The Edge notification is at the end of the URL bar and the drop-down menu label different. The label is "Choose how this site opens".
In this prototype, the users can also change their preferences by clicking on the icon located at the end of the URL bar. Since final results were split evenly, we moved forward with this direction because this pattern was most familiar with users.
Prototype 2
Participants found the smart switch valuable for organizing personal activities, saving time, and separating personal tasks from work.
They preferred having an additional window for the other profile for better organization and differentiation.
Most (4 out of 6) agreed that automatically opening sites in specific profiles by default is convenient, as it avoids interrupting their current work.
Synthesize