Microsoft Teams
live location sharing
Mobile first, live location sharing for friends and family scenarios
ROLE
Lead designer
Information architecture
Prototyping
DOMAIN
Desktop, web and mobile
Consumer communication tools
Enterprise communication tools
IMPACT
Delivered new features, capabilities and interaction patterns to expand a well known product into new domains
WORK ＞ MICROSOFT TEAMS LIVE LOCATION SHARING
Context
Microsoft Teams is best known as an enterprise communication and productivity tool, however it’s core value proposition has been expanded to smaller group scenarios more targeted at families, friends and interest / hobby groups.
As part of gap analyses to identify opportunities for Teams to expand into the consumer space, live location sharing was seen as complimentary to the new set of consumer focussed features envisioned to help families and friends connect in real time (and space), inspiring some interesting new potential uses at work too.
“Seeing where my son has been during the day gives us things to talk about, it adds another layer to our conversations. It gives us a stronger relationship… Setting up this app was actually his idea”
“I use location sharing so I can see what my dad and my husband are doing, especially at the end of the day, and check on them without interrupting while they are driving… I also feel safer if I know they can see where I am”
“I work as a real estate agent and I usually meet up with clients in a Starbucks or some other neutral place. I’d like to just be able to share my location, but also I have privacy concerns since they may not be people I know well”
Key scenarios
From research sessions with 8 people who frequently use live location sharing apps (Life 360 and Find my friends).
Family Peace of Mind
For who?
Parents of younger children, extended family members.
Why?
Convenient checking in, staying up to date without being intrusive.
Tracking Teens
For who?
Parents of younger children, extended family members.
Why?
Convenient checking in, staying up to date without being intrusive.
Social Events and Gatherings
For who?
Adult friends, coworkers, acquaintances.
Why?
Reducing hassles associated with meeting up.
Competitor examples
Looking at integrated static & live location sharing features in popular chat apps (e.g. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp).
Challenge(s)
Creation of a v1 new chat based feature and stand alone Microsoft Teams app, initially as part of a Teams consumer v1.
Somewhat of an ambiguous and exploratory expansion of the Teams value proposition into the competitive consumer space.
How might live location core ux patterns scale from smaller family and friends groups, back into the main Teams product for enterprise scenarios?
User goals
Easily share your live location, with high confidence and trust in who your sharing your live location with and for how long.
Clearly see (or request to see) when others have shared their live location.
Intuitively create shared locations with specific people.
Quickly set and notifications based on yours and other’s live location updates.
Early exploration (1)
Setting duration for sharing live location.
Early exploration (2)
Sending and receiving live location in chat.
Early exploration (3)
Live location stopped - option to leave a history of the sharing session in the chat.
Initial prototypes - sharing and receiving live location in chat
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Share location from chat
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Switch location sharing mode
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Live location shared to the chat
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Shared location detail view
Initial prototypes - setting notifications
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Setting notifications for people
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Saving places
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Setting notifications for places (basic)
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Setting notifications for places (more detailed)
User testing insights
(1st iteration)
Task 1: Share your current location with the group
13/16 participants succeeded first time
Mental model mismatch
People don’t necessarily expect live location to be a chat thing - but rather a system setting or presence state
Task 2: Set a notification for someone’s location (one-off)
11/16 participants succeeded first time
More feedback needed
People commented on lack of clear confirmation of success for completing the task
Task 3: Set a notification for someone’s location (recurring)
11/16 participants succeeded first time
Task 4: Set notifications for people via a saved place
9/16 participants succeeded first time
Mental model mismatch
50% intuitively looked for a way to do this via contact management instead of chat
Task 5: Create a new shared place
16/16 participants succeeded first time
Next steps
Iterate and improve sharing live location in chat.
Port the experience to desktop (focussed mostly on consuming incoming live location).
Scale the experience from a chat feature to a full Teams app to create a centralized experience for viewing live location and shared places across all chats you’re in, as well as all chats in which you may be sharing your live location.
Scaling to desktop
Exploration - Teams app
Rapid lofi prototype exploration into options for how the experience could be best scaled to aggregate live location activity across all chats.
Scaling to a Teams app
Outcomes and learnings
The feature worked well as intended, but it remains to be seen how valid the hypothesis was that people want a single app to handle chat and non-work related collaboration and live activity needs (vs dedicated apps).
It’s difficult to design for work and non-work contexts with a new and ambiguous capability, in hindsight I suspect that most people prefer the tangible separation that using multiple dedicated apps affords, despite what they say focus groups.
Unfortunately it seems that Microsoft later removed the feature 🥹 - from Google AI:
Microsoft has not officially stated a specific reason for removing "live location" sharing from Teams, but the most likely explanation is privacy concerns; allowing users to constantly share their precise location could be seen as an invasion of privacy, especially in a professional setting where not everyone needs to know where their colleagues are at all times. [1, 2, 3]
Key points to consider: [2, 3, 4]
No direct replacement: While users can still share their general work location within Teams, the option to actively share live location updates is no longer available. [2, 3, 4]
Focus on security: Microsoft might have prioritized data security by removing this feature, as live location sharing could potentially be misused or exploited. [1, 2, 4]
Alternative options: If you need to share your location for specific situations, you can likely rely on other apps that are designed specifically for location sharing while maintaining privacy controls. [1, 2, 4]
Generative AI is experimental.
[1] https://service.uoregon.edu/TDClient/2030/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=140419