Uncovering Patterns Of Behavior Among Community Users
The Cisco Support Community team wanted to know more about its users in order to inform its long-term strategy. I was asked to conduct "visioning" research to identify ways that the Support Community could be of more value to users in the future.
Approach
I began the search for a future vision by conducting semi-structured interviews with internal business owners, community managers, and other key internal collaborators. Our discussions provided me with their views on the Community, collaboration, and future direction.
The Cisco Telepresence system allowed me to conduct remote sessions as if I was in the same room as the participants.
Next, I conducted several focus groups with customers and partners, both in person and remotely via Cisco Telepresence. High level topics included their key job tasks, their use of Cisco.com, how they manage knowledge, and their current use of online communities.
After collecting this information, I coded and analyzed it for patterns, themes, and trends. I also compared data from phases 1 and 2 to see how well internal perceptions matched external realities.
Impact
I developed the signpost model to represent how community users leverage the community.
I presented the findings from this research to the Support Community stakeholders and executives. In the presentation, I provided a framework for understanding users' key tasks. I also made recommendations for how the Community could better align itself with these tasks, thereby increasing user activity and contribution. Many recommendations informed broader strategy, while others were tactical design changes.
In addition to the presentation, I developed clear personas of community users and put them in a number of stories. Each story illustrated common task flows inside and outside the Community. I made these available to stakeholders and executives on an interactive website.
This research had an immediate impact on the design of several areas of the Community. It also informed longer-term user experience decision making for the Community and inspired additional qualitative and quantitative research.