Differentiated learning experiences for priority user segments

Employer: Adobe Systems
Role: Content ops leader, ‘Chief content wrangler – Photoshop’

Situation

By 2014-15, Adobe’s business had made a hugely successful transition to cloud-based software delivery. To keep pace with the new business model, the company’s Creative Cloud learning content had to evolve to serve differentiated experiences for identified priority user segments.

Stakeholders

Tasks

Create differentiated learning paths for the following priority user segments identified in collaboration with UX research
- Onboarding: Users news to Creative Cloud
  - Weave learning elements right within the UX of the product
    Example: In-product learning snippets
- Retention: Early adopters who upgrade to the latest & greatest product experience
  - What’s new content strategy; examples:
    - What’s new landing page
    - Desktop what’s new page
Create show instead of tell content; create content that engages Adobe’s creative users
Example: Stroke smoothing (Photoshop)
Focus on top-level differentiated product-specific segments:
Examples: Adobe Stock Learn & Support and Adobe Stock Contributor Learn & Support
Examples: Creative Cloud Learning Hub, Admin Help, Enterprise user types

Metrics

Results (non-confidential)

The new content types garnered impressive page traffic metrics and user ratings:

The Photoshop desktop What’s New page alone was registering millions of page hits every year by 2017.
Product-specific variations notwithstanding, the What’s New resources registered encouraging positive user ratings.
The call propensity around new features saw a decrease in 2016-17.
The content strategy I contributed to in 2014-15 has stood the test of time, scaling for newer channels like mobile. It is helping customers year after year in getting the most out of their Adobe software.
Overall, Adobe’s onboarding and retention strategy has been a huge success.

And this happened on the splash screen of Photoshop 19.x releases, marking a proud moment in my career:

Drivers	Approvers	Contributors	Informed
Digital Media user research Digital Media design Community help and learning (CHL)	Digital Media executive leadership	Digital Media engineering	All tiers of Customer Experience org

Engineering-facing	Support-relevant
Page hits Unique visitors In-app clickthroughs Active use: Monthly active users (MAU)	Monthly call volume / MAU Monthly forum volume / MAU Feature call propensity Feature first call resolution rate Social media escalations