Situation

In 2024, MSN set out to deliver trusted coverage of pivotal elections in the United States and India. With reach across Windows, Edge, Bing, and Microsoft Start, the challenge was to inform millions of users with real-time results, live streams, and voter registration details while establishing a framework that could support future election cycles.

As UX Design Lead for the MSN Content Ecosystem & Growth team, I owned the design across platforms. This included defining the product framework, aligning priorities with product management, writing detailed specifications, ensuring accessibility and responsiveness, and working closely with engineering, editorial partners, and major media networks such as CNN, ABC News, USA Today, and Times of India.

Task

The goal was to design a high-impact elections hub that delivered immediate value to users while strengthening platform credibility and traffic. Election timelines happen quickly and there are often many moving parts and shifting stories. Under tight timelines, we focused on:

Dynamic news and results cards to be shown across Windows, MSN and Bing platforms
Dynamic elections calendar and editorial news carousels featuring top-tier stories
Live video streams and live blog feeds for specific calendar events
Presidential, Senate, and Congressional results on election day
Registration prompts and “get out the vote” calls to action
Ads and promotional modules/states across canvases

I also needed to balance speed with scalability, ensuring the design system could support multiple regions and election cycles.

Action

To deliver a high-impact and scalable elections experience, I:

Synthesized competitive insights and expert input into an intuitive cross-platform experience
Defined and prioritized the product framework for both immediate impact and long-term reuse
Designed results instances for every possible election outcome, optimized for clarity of results
Designed custom components to host dynamic live streaming and event content
Partnered with engineering and content teams to validate feasibility and ensure unbiased accuracy
Outlined modular specifications to support responsiveness and accessibility
Oversaw QA and implementation to ensure high-quality execution

Results

The MSN Elections Hub achieved record-breaking engagement during the 2024 elections:

960M total content clicks
52M unique user engagements
2.46M active unique users on the US Elections hub
3.5M Bing search queries driven by MSN partnerships
150K increase in topic follows for “US Elections”

Beyond the metrics, the hub strengthened platform credibility and user trust which was a key branding goal from leadership. The outcome was driven not only by thoughtful design execution, but also by close collaboration with cross-functional teams, consultation with election experts, and rigorous research. This experience showed that impactful design leadership requires systems thinking and strategic partnership, not just interface design.

Team

Design Leads: Paul Methot (MSN), Kelly Lamar (Bing)
Product Managers: Daniel Ho (Lead), Antonina Chapor (Business Relations), Joanna Sinclair (Content)
Engineering: Jenelle Yonkman, Akshatha Patil, Ahmed Mohamed, Sabry Ragab, Anant Jain, Chris Zhang