In 2008 & 2009, we conducted user research on the previous version of the Visual Studio product site, including a usability study, a card sort test, user interviews, and an online survey. Guided by findings and from our analysis, I facilitated a series of strategy workshops with the client and multiple stakeholders to determine our digital strategy for improving customer sentiment and supporting the sales pipeline. This system map shows the various routes by which customers will enter and travel through the site to various end actions. An emphasis was placed on ensuring feedback loops to drive traffic from earned sources (such as social media and search) back to the product site.
The site structure focused on improving the search ranking of the site by providing more valuable guidance content about what scenarios of use the Visual Studio products support. The product pages and their feature categories were also elevated to the primary and secondary navigation to enable quick product comparison. This approach was based on a key finding from the usability studies that (1) the target audience uses search as their primary means of finding product information and (2) are seeking feature comparison charts to guide their purchase decision process.
Template wireframes were produced to support the content needs at various points in the user flow. The templates were then cross-referenced with to the site map.
A screenshot of the site, as implemented based on the wireframes I produced.
