Microsoft
The Challenge
Determine who audience really is and what they really want. Improve content desirability with a website, magazine and events. Microsoft had used surveys and focus groups to reach its software architects but never behavioral research. They wanted to know who they were, what issues they were truly dealing with and how best to support them with cross-channel content.
Reaching the audience was half the challenge. This is mainly because Microsoft called their users by titles that matched how they thought about them, not how actual users called themselves. Once we realized that Enterprise Architects struggled with the job titles in their organizations and that they were basically Senior Developers, finding them became easier.
We conducted user interviews in San Francisco, New York, Portland, India, UK and Sweden with 36 architects in their native environments. The research aimed at empathizing with the needs and goals as well as the current pain points of architects. In addition we conducted an online survey with 403 architects globally to get their input.
The user research revealed that software architects were crying out for social networking, best practice sharing. Furthermore Microsoft initially was so shocked by the innovation suggested by the findings, there was internal disbelief. After a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (veteran with 25 years experience) analyzed the results, they concluded that Microsoft had been seeing their audience through rose colored lenses. The data was empirical, the findings spoke for themselves. As a result of the study Microsoft was able to understand user needs in a new way.
The report had a tremendous impact on content strategy for engaging their audience across all channels.
