Product Design Intern
Internship Overview
Contributed to redesigning the Weather experience for Windows 11 and MSN, with a focus on cleaner UI, more intuitive UX, and improved monetization.
Project Type
Product Design Intern
Timeline
Feb 2024 - Jun 2024
Role
Product Designer
Team
Windows & Web Experience Team
Windows Weather App
Windows Weather App provides an immersive weather experience through rich visualizations and interactive tools.
Design Challenges
Users had to click through different screens to find basic weather info.
Users struggled to understand different weather metrics due to unclear presentation.
Old Design
Design Solutions
Created a new visual and structure that uses more intuitive colors and puts all key weather information into a single, easy-to-scan page.
Showed hourly changes and current values for key metrics like wind, air quality and humidity.
New Design
Hourly Section Design Decisions
Used line charts for continuous data like temperature, and bar charts for discrete data like rainfall.
Each chart uses colors that match what users expect.
Each chart highlights one main data, and shows other data in a simpler style to show hierarchy.
Overview
Precipitation
Wind
Humidity
Cloud Cover
Pressure
Weather Details Section Design Decisions
Because each weather metric has different data patterns, I grouped them into three types: rating, trend, and event, and designed for each accordingly.
Used color-coded gauges for rating metrics like UV to show risk levels.
Used line charts for trend data like temperature to highlight changes over time.
Used illustrations for event data like rain or cloud cover to show conditions in a clear and intuitive way.
Weather Details Section
Bing Search Result
When users search for "weather" on Bing, they see a weather summary directly in the search results.
Design Challenges
The old UI lacked visual hierarchy and looked messy and outdated, making it hard to scan.
Only showed fixed metrics like temperature and precipitation, with no way to show other important conditions when needed.
Old Design
Design Solutions
Designed a clean, card-based layout with clearer icons and stronger visual hierarchy across desktop and mobile.
Used data visualizations to highlight key daily weather data, making it easy to tell if something is high or low.
New Design
Weather Widget
The Weather Widget lives in the Windows 11 taskbar and gives users quick updates on local weather. It's a simple way to check the weather at a glance, without opening any weather app.
My Contribution
When severe weather occurred, the existing widget couldn’t show enough information. It only showed that the severe weather was happening, without any details.
To improve this, I designed new severe weather scenario widgets based on the current visual system. For example, when it's raining, the widget shows recent and upcoming rainfall. When it's windy, it shows a wind direction map.
What I Learned
I’m proud to have been part of this team and to work alongside some of the best designers.
Through this internship, I learned how to design within large-scale systems, balance polish with clarity, and ship real products. I also gained experience collaborating with PMs and developers, and truly valued building great design with other designers.
Gratitude
Shout out to my mentor Yanyan and my manager Saber for their continuous support, thoughtful feedback, and guidance throughout the internship! I learned so much from both of them and I’m truly thankful for the trust they gave me to grow and contribute.
Some lovely moments with the team:
