Although the importance of user experience is now well understood, too many digital workplaces continue to fall short of expectations. This blog explores what user experience really means in a workplace context, and why it matters for IT leaders. We’ll also look at how modern tools like Microsoft 365 make it possible to deliver platforms that are both technically sound and genuinely people-first.
There was a time when user experience was seen as secondary to technical requirements. But the consumerisation of IT, competition for employee talent, the interrelationship between technology adoption and business success, and growing shadow IT concerns have changed that. However, although the importance of user experience (UX) is now acknowledged, digital workplace projects continue to under-deliver because of poor UX.
What Do We Mean by User Experience – And Why It’s So Important
ISO 9241-210:2019 is the authority on human-centred design. This explains that user experience ‘includes all the user’s emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviours and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use.’
So, UX is much more than how something looks. It encompasses how it feels to use, and whether it’s logical, intuitive, and effective. It’s useful to think in terms of a hierarchy of user needs. This idea, based on Maslow’s seminal work, suggests that users progress from ‘functional’ to ‘reliable’ to ‘useable’ and then to ‘pleasurable’ appreciation. So, your digital workplace won’t be pleasurable to use unless it is first useable, and it can’t be useable unless it is first reliable. Practically, this means having a clear information architecture, a consistent content structure, logical navigation, reliable search, and a cohesive visual and interactive experience across apps and tools.
In short, UX is what makes your digital workplace not only usable, but enjoyable and easy to use.
Why does this matter so much?
In customer service, it’s now a well-established principle that customers judge every interaction against their best experience, regardless of industry. So, exceptional service from a bank or restaurant, becomes the benchmark by which people judge the service of airlines, government, and other unrelated areas.
And the same thing happens with technology. Your internal customers aren’t comparing the IT experience you provide with its predecessor, or their experience of business IT elsewhere. They’re comparing it to consumer platforms like Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify: fast, personalised, seamless. Some have called this ‘the Amazon Effect’.
These consumer platforms may not face the same security and compliance challenges as you, but unfortunately your users don’t allow for this. They have high expectations and if work tools are slow, inconsistent, or hard to navigate, they disengage or find ‘shadow IT’ workarounds – which creates other problems.
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UX vs. Functionality: Why That Trade-Off No Longer Exists
In the past, having a user-friendly and attractive platform may have meant compromising technical requirements. But with the evolution of Microsoft 365 — SharePoint Online, Power Platform, Viva, and more — this is no longer the case. You can now offer exceptional user experience without compromising ‘out of the box’ functionality or restricting evergreen updates.
Enabling you to offer your business a highly effective digital workplace that meets all your technical requirements, combined with an Amazon-esque user experience. Something fast to deploy, easy to manage, secure, scalable, and integrated with your ecosystem, and also visually clean and easy to navigate.
A great UX and technical excellence are no longer mutually exclusive – they enhance each other and are both vital to project success. Increasingly, successful IT leaders are treating user experience as a technical requirement, rather than an optional enhancement.
What Great UX Looks Like in a Digital Workplace
‘The best technology is invisible. When something works beautifully, you don’t think about it—you just get your work done.’
This, variously attributed quotation, beautifully encapsulates what we want UX to achieve.
However, a great user experience doesn’t happen by accident. It is the result of deliberate, user-first design, clear communication, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
It should be an integral part of your project from its very beginning, and not something that’s added part way through. Key to this is early engagement with employees, to understand their workflows, frustrations, and needs.
It’s common for leaders to think they know what’s required – which to some extent they may – but true insight comes from first-hand user input. We use UX and IA workshops to uncover otherwise hidden friction points.
Simplifying and standardising navigation – so its consistent across SharePoint, Teams, and other tools – is also vital to UX. We use tree testing and card sorting to fully understand how employees think about and categorise content. This helps to achieve navigation and site structures that feel intuitive. As a guiding principle, if employees can’t find what they need in three clicks or less, a structure needs rethinking.
Excellent UX also requires a clean, consistent, modern and engaging design. But as with employee needs and navigation, this isn’t about guesswork. We map real user journeys and frustrations to ensure that the design is a response to evidence-based need.
Accessibility Is UX
Accessibility is a core pillar of UX, and important enough to warrant its own section here. Designing with accessibility in mind isn’t just about those with permanent disabilities, it improves the experience for everyone. It helps people with temporary situations (eg eye strain or accident recovery), challenging environments (eg bright sunlight or noisy), or experiencing age-related changes.
Modern platforms like Microsoft 365 offer a strong foundation for accessible design. But as with all elements of UX it must be considered from the start.
Why IT Should Lead UX
The importance of a good UX is increasingly well understood. However, the greatest benefits are achieved when IT takes ownership of UX and doesn’t outsource it to HR or Internal Comms.
When IT leads UX, collaborating with other departments, we see higher platform adoption, improved integration across tools, fewer support tickets, and more engaged, productive employees.
We consistently see the most successful digital workplaces resulting from IT, HR, Internal Comms, and business leaders working together to build a people-first environment. That’s why we embed UX at every stage of our approach at Silicon Reef, and it’s a key driver of success.
Final Takeaway
A poor user experience creates frustration, duplication, and disengagement. While a great user experience creates clarity, efficiency, and satisfaction.
Today’s tools make it possible to deliver an excellent user experience without compromising technical requirements.
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Additional FAQs
How can we drive better adoption of our Microsoft 365 digital workplace tools?
Adoption isn’t just about awareness — it’s about alignment. Tools like Teams, SharePoint, and Viva have the potential to transform productivity, but only if they reflect how people actually work. Poor UX, unclear governance, and lack of change support often lead to low engagement.
To drive meaningful adoption:
- Map out real user journeys across departments.
- Identify friction points and design simplified workflows.
- Deliver role-specific training and ongoing support.
Silicon Reef helps digital leaders take a UX-led approach to change, ensuring adoption strategies are grounded in data and user behaviour — not assumptions.
Why do our internal platforms feel fragmented and unintuitive, even though we’re using Microsoft 365?
Microsoft 365 is a powerful ecosystem — but without a cohesive UX strategy, it can feel like a series of disconnected tools. Users may have to navigate between Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, and other apps without a clear sense of structure or consistency.
Common issues include:
- Inconsistent navigation across workspaces and sites.
- Duplicate content stored in silos.
- Lack of a single point of entry or “front door” for employees.
To solve this, IT leaders should focus on creating a unified digital experience. That includes developing a central experience layer (often with Viva Connections), standardising navigation patterns, and consolidating content. Silicon Reef specialises in designing digital workplaces that feel seamless and purposeful — even when built on complex Microsoft 365 foundations.
Can we customise Microsoft 365 to serve different teams or business units more effectively?
Yes — and doing so can significantly improve both productivity and satisfaction. Different teams have different needs: frontline staff need fast, mobile-first access to key tools; marketing may need creative collaboration hubs; leadership might want high-level dashboards and comms channels.
Practical ways to customise include:
- Creating role-specific homepages using Viva Connections or SharePoint audience targeting.
- Deploying Teams templates with pre-configured channels, tabs, and apps.
- Using Power Automate to streamline team-specific workflows.
- Embedding line-of-business systems via Power Apps and adaptive cards.
Silicon Reef works with organisations to design modular, scalable Microsoft 365 environments that balance local team autonomy with central governance — ensuring the platform flexes without fragmenting.
How can better UX improve how people find content in Microsoft 365?
UX and findability are tightly connected. If people can’t easily find the content, tools, or resources they need, the digital workplace fails — no matter how powerful the platform is. In Microsoft 365, poor UX often shows up as confusing site structures, inconsistent naming, or disorganised Teams and SharePoint spaces.
Improving findability through UX involves:
- Designing information architectures that reflect how users actually think and work.
- Applying consistent naming conventions, tagging, and metadata to improve search performance.
- Streamlining navigation across Teams, SharePoint, and Viva.
- Removing duplication and decluttering the interface to reduce overwhelm.
At Silicon Reef, we work with digital leaders to structure Microsoft 365 environments that prioritise usability and discoverability, ensuring your people can get to the right information — fast — and stay focused on work that matters.
What does ‘good UX’ really mean in the context of the digital workplace?
In this context, UX is less about UI polish and more about enabling work to happen smoothly. A good digital workplace experience should:
- Help employees get what they need with minimal clicks.
- Surface relevant tools and info based on context.
- Reduce unnecessary complexity and choice paralysis.
- Be consistent across devices and platforms.
Good UX leads to higher engagement, fewer support calls, and stronger employee sentiment. For IT leaders, that means lower friction, better ROI on Microsoft 365 investment, and platforms that scale as the business evolves.
Silicon Reef brings UX thinking to the heart of Microsoft 365 strategy — helping organisations move beyond deployment and toward true digital enablement.
