For December 2019, Microsoft has decided to put its focus on the design of Microsoft 365 and collaboration among 365 users. As Microsoft is making ongoing changes to its products and services, it’s crucial for users to stay up to date to ensure they don’t fall behind.
Let’s take an in-depth look at some of the December 2019 updates.
Collaboration
Staying up to date with the changes made by co-workers or clients will ensure a smoother collaboration experience during the whole project.
Microsoft Fluid Framework
With Microsoft Fluid Framework, Microsoft has decided to not just focus on the physical changes made by collaborators but also allowing for more context to be added to a project or task. This will allow for a more fluid process of collaboration, ensuring you meet the clients needs fully.
Microsoft Fluid Framework allows users to break down barriers between applications in Microsoft 365. With the framework, you are able to place different components like tables, graphs, text, etc. together in one place. No more needing to decide whether the next step would be made via email, Microsoft Teams, or elsewhere. The collaboration will flow smoothly and allow for flexibility.
Users can test the public preview for Microsoft Fluid Framework here.
Microsoft 365 Design
Microsoft made sure to put added focus on the design of applications for mobile productivity to further increase productivity and ensure an easier collaboration process.
Mobile & Micro-Productivity
Managing your time and tasks is crucial for a productive day, and when your time becomes fragmented as time passes, it becomes somewhat of a challenge to ensure all tasks are accomplished in time.
With some research into their users, Microsoft learned that users tend to be on their phone almost all day, however, they use their smartphones in short bursts of time. According to Jon Friedman, the general manager of design at Microsoft, a user spends an average of 22 seconds on Outlook for mobile. This made Microsoft think of how they can help those users in that short period.
“And so we looked at both the phone experience and how people were using them and also the research around micro-productivity and started to think through how do we actually give people meaningful things to accomplish while they’re on the go.”
— Jon Friedman
One of the features added to Outlook on iOS to help with micro-productivity is Play My Emails. This feature allows users to listen to their inbox as they would a podcast and allows users to also speak back to accomplish more tasks while on the go.
In short, Microsoft made some changes to their products to help break large tasks into microtasks to ensure users can continue to work towards their goals, one small task at a time.
Fluent Mobile
As mobile usage grows year by year, it’s crucial that users can go from desktop to mobile with ease and without interruptions to their workflow.
With Fluent Mobile, Microsoft focused on simplifying experiences on mobile phones with the Microsoft Suite, no matter if it’s on Android or iOS devices.
“We need to reduce cognitive load when switching between our apps.”
So it doesn’t matter which device you prefer, Microsoft 365 will go wherever you go.
Are you interested in signing up for Microsoft 365 to gain access to these valuable features? Then check out the Office 365 page or contact us for a free consultation.