kayhof@outlook.com - 425.999.6044
Microsoft Surface Interactive Screensaver
KAY HOFMEESTER
I am an innovative Product Design Leader with extensive expertise in AI and emerging technologies. With a proven track record of building high-performing design teams, shaping product strategy, influencing executive decisions, and delivering groundbreaking user experiences, I’ve contributed to market-leading products at Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Below, you’ll find an overview of some of my pre-Meta work. More recent projects—including my leadership on Orion, its successor, and generative AI initiatives—are available upon request with a password.
Microsoft Health
Engaging healthcare
Engaging patients is one of the most challenging problems in healthcare. Disengagement leads to significantly worse health outcomes and increased costs. How can we encourage people to stay consistently involved in their health? How can we support adherence to prescribed remedies?
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My work in this area focused on motivation and behavior change, designing solutions across mobile, web, and wearables such as the Apple Watch and Microsoft Band. I managed a team of 20, including interaction designers, visual designers, prototypers, and user researchers. Together, we crafted user experiences aimed at engaging users and improving health outcomes. I collaborated with leadership, up to the Corporate Vice President level, to drive the design and innovation process.
Design innovation team
Unlocking innovation in the complex and ambiguous space of healthcare solutions was central to our team's success. To achieve this, I built a dedicated innovation team and established a clear, adaptable ideation process that could be applied both internally and with external partners. I prioritized flexibility, ensuring the team could rapidly respond to changes and new inputs.
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I strongly believe in evidence-based, iterative design. Our approach focused on creating prototypes to test with users, enabling us to refine solutions based on real-world feedback while fostering a mindset of adaptability and creative problem-solving within the team.
Collaboration with research
Collaborating with Microsoft Research was a career highlight as a design manager. I transformed my user experience team into an innovation hub, bridging PhD researchers and product engineers. Together, we envisioned user experiences and leveraged an 800-person beta pool for impactful studies, including:
• Stress Prediction Models: Machine learning models to accurately predict stress.
• Activity Maximization System: ML-driven personalized messaging to boost daily activity.
• Sleep Improvement Systems: Solutions enhancing sleep quality using millions of recorded events.
• Behavior Change Study: A 4,000-participant study driving improvements in sleep and activity.
These efforts showcased the power of integrating cutting-edge research with innovative design to deliver meaningful, data-driven user experiences.
Amazon Alexa
A novel product category
Being part of the cutting-edge Alexa team, collaborating with speech scientists and engineers to define a new consumer product category, aligned perfectly with my background in innovation and interaction design. My responsibilities included establishing a design and user research team and defining the overall user experience. Additionally, I played a key role in shaping the feature set and marketing strategy.
I began by developing a structured design process to guide the team’s thinking, directed user research to inform key decisions, and led the creation of iterative prototypes to evaluate targeted experiences both internally and with a beta pool of users. I had the privilege of regularly presenting and discussing the envisioned user experience with leadership, including at the CEO level, to align on the product vision and strategy.
A new voice user interface
The Alexa user experience team I led was tasked with creating an entirely new type of user interface: a pure voice interaction system for a hands-free device featuring only twelve full-color LED lights. During the prototyping and development phase, I collaborated closely with multiple teams of speech scientists to define the voice design, refine voice interactions, and establish guiding principles for automated speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU).
A multi-disciplinary team
The Alexa team operated in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. While defining key aspects of the user experience, I built a highly skilled team of 17, including interaction designers, voice interface designers, graphic designers, user researchers, and a sound designer. Through a deliberate and strategic recruiting process, I assembled a talented team that thrived in this high-energy, innovative setting.
Design Explorations
Working in the emerging medium of voice, we developed tools to create realistic design explorations. One key example was video sketches, which were created before the relevant Alexa services were live. These sketches enabled us to explore design opportunities and provide clear guidance to the engineering team. By leveraging these videos, we successfully proposed features and secured alignment within the team.
Windows touch
& Xbox Kinect
Windows App Store
For the newly launched app store, we developed a clear and compelling design system to accommodate a wide variety of app types while enabling the promotion of specific apps. The system was designed to let the content take center stage while maintaining a clear and intuitive hierarchy.
Innovative touch gestures
My team and I developed a suite of innovative and easy to learn touch gestures for Windows, including semantic zooming (left) and slide-to-select (right). Through several rounds of user testing we honed the self-revealing gestures so users could learn them while using them. The videos show users learning the gestures as they are trying them out for the first time.
From language to product
How do you develop and communicate a touch interaction language and integrate it into a massive operating system like Windows? The challenge was translating innovative touch research into a shipping product within a legacy-driven product environment. This required driving adoption of touch features across the Windows platform and numerous application product teams.
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As the leader of a design team in the Windows product division, I tackled this challenge by forming a virtual team of PMs and researchers to complement my core team of designers. Together, we developed foundational touch interaction building blocks, such as keyboard and menu experiences, for both the Windows platform and its applications, ensuring seamless integration and widespread adoption across the organization.
3D spatial interaction
I developed an interaction language for Xbox Kinect, combining 3D gestures based on skeletal recognition with voice interactions supported by audio and visual feedback. Leading a team of designers and animators, I collaborated closely with user research, prototyping, and engineering teams to explore possibilities and define optimal interactions. A particularly interesting challenge was determining when to prioritize different input and output methods and how to integrate these interaction mechanisms seamlessly for a cohesive user experience.
Microsoft Surface
touch table
Touch innovation
The Microsoft Surface touch table team provided me with the exciting challenge of developing an entirely new touch language based on the principles of natural user interface design. As the leader of the user experience team, I collaborated with Microsoft Research Labs scientists to define touch gestures that became the foundation of the interaction model.
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Working closely with the user research team, I established an iterative process of prototyping and testing to create intuitive user experiences tailored specifically to a touch interface. Once these interactions were refined, I expanded the paradigms to include physical objects on the screen and interactions with smart objects like phones. This comprehensive set of interactions formed a cohesive touch language that became the foundation of the user experience for the new touch table form factor.
Designing a new language
The Surface touch table introduced a novel form factor that required an entirely new user experience. To inspire out-of-the-box thinking, I led an ideation process to define innovative interaction metaphors. Collaborating with the user research team, we tested these metaphors to determine which resonated most effectively with users.
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Building on the selected metaphor, my team developed user interaction paradigms tailored specifically to the touch table form factor. We refined these paradigms by creating prototypes and iterating on the designs through in-depth user testing, ultimately delivering a user experience optimized for this novel platform.
A meticulously designed user interface
Based on interaction paradigms and user testing, my team developed a detailed touch-first user interface for the Surface OS, making multi-user interaction, self-revealing gestures for intuitive learning, and visual presentation a central focus.
An inspiring vision
As with many of the innovative environments I’ve worked in, the Surface team operated in a rapidly changing environment, which at times presented challenges for the team. To help unify the team around a common goal, I translated the abstract business strategy into a tangible user experience that became the de-facto vision for Microsoft Surface. This vision inspired and motivated the engineering and product management teams while bridging the gap between research, leadership, and engineering. It provided the team with a clear direction and a shared objective to work toward, ensuring alignment and focus.
Surface Vision Prototype
Well-crafted design artifacts established the design team as key drivers of the product vision. This prototype played a pivotal role in shifting the Surface team’s culture toward being more design-driven by presenting an inspirational vision for the Surface touch table, which included interactive physical objects.
Personal projects
Mustang resto
Building on my love for technology, I took on a personal project with my son Dylan to completely rebuild a 1965 Mustang, starting with two rusted parts cars. This ambitious project included a full rebuild of a Ford short block 302 engine, transforming it into a functioning vehicle.
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Throughout the process, we explored and applied foundational principles of automotive engineering, including suspension, brakes, and the electrical system. This project was not only a hands-on learning experience but also a rewarding journey of collaboration and problem-solving.
A maker's project
Every maker needs to build at least one word clock, and this became a collaborative project with my son Angel, who has a passion for woodworking and electronics. Together, we designed and built a word clock powered by Arduino boards.
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We crafted a unique case and display, which we produced using a laser cutter. This project combined our interests in electronics and woodworking, resulting in a functional and personalized timepiece.
Enjoying the outdoors
Running long distances has always been a passion of mine, primarily for the joy and challenge it brings. After reading Born to Run, I was inspired to push my limits further and take on ultra-marathons, resulting in the completion of two 50K trail runs.
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In addition to running, I have a deep love for hiking and had the unforgettable experience of summiting Mount Rainier. These pursuits highlight my enjoyment of endurance challenges, a sense of adventure, and the satisfaction of working toward meaningful goals.
