Case Study
NetDocuments
Word Add-in
Enabling secure co-authoring and document management directly inside Microsoft Word — without leaving the document.
Enabling secure co-authoring and document management directly inside Microsoft Word — without leaving the document.
Legal professionals spend the majority of their day drafting and editing in Microsoft Word. Historically, NetDocuments users had to constantly move between the ND web platform and Word to open files, save changes, manage versions, and add required metadata — a workflow that fragmented focus and slowed work.
I led end-to-end UX design of a net-new Word Add-in that brings NetDocuments directly into the Word ribbon. Users can now open matters, save documents, co-author in real time, and stay compliant — without ever leaving Word.
Users were forced to jump between Word and the NetDocuments web platform to open files, save updates, manage versions, and add metadata. This constant task-switching broke concentration and made real-time collaboration nearly impossible in a profession where accuracy and speed are critical.
The legacy checkout model meant only one person could edit a document at a time — creating firm-wide bottlenecks on active matters. Worse, documents saved locally outside of ND created real compliance exposure that legal teams couldn't afford to ignore.
I lose my train of thought every time I have to go back to the browser to save or check a version. I just want to stay in Word and do my work.
The project opened with a broad mixed-method research effort: a general interest survey (n=87), a detailed preferences survey (n=130), end-user interviews (n=7), and admin and partner interviews (n=10+). An in-product feedback modal recruited active users mid-workflow — reaching people during real sessions, not in a lab setting.
The research surfaced a clear tension: attorneys wanted co-authoring, but were deeply concerned about losing control of their documents in the process.
Rowan's frustration — losing focus every time he left Word — drove the decision to embed the entire save, version, and co-auth flow inside the ribbon rather than launching a browser or separate panel. Every action that could stay in-context did.
Co-authoring introduced significant complexity. Three distinct session types — checkout, open co-auth, and protected co-auth — each had their own entry path, session behavior, and close sequence. Detailed scenario flows were built before any screen design to expose edge cases early: how session close differs from document save, how external collaborators gain access, and what conflict resolution looks like mid-session.
Design moved in deliberate layers — wireframes first to validate IA, then high-fidelity screens aligned to M365 Fluent Design patterns. The ribbon icon went through five concept directions before landing on a version that felt native. The Save As dialog needed to surface favorites, recent files, and full DMS navigation in a single panel that matched Word's own patterns — so it took careful iteration to get right.
Prototype tests ran through Maze with participants navigating as a lawyer at a real legal firm — grounding tasks in authentic scenarios. Live co-authoring sessions with the extended team then surfaced platform-specific issues that no prototype could catch, particularly Mac vs. Windows compatibility gaps that became pre-launch engineering priorities.
The final product brings NetDocuments natively into the Microsoft Word ribbon. Attorneys can open documents from any client matter, save back to the right location with required metadata, co-author with session-level control, and access version history — all without leaving Word.
