Project Length

4 Months

Team Size

7 UX Researcher
6 Sponsors
(Microsoft Content Experience Team)

My Roles

UX Researcher

Background

Microsoft’s customer support (@MicrosoftHelps) focuses on engaging customers through official social media platforms, providing proactive assistance for Microsoft products on X (Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, and Threads. This project serves as an audit of @MicrosoftHelps' existing social media presence and explores untapped opportunities to better reach Gen Z customers.

Project Focus

Given customer needs and the goal of engaging Gen Z, this UX research project evaluates the effectiveness of @MicrosoftHelps in delivering self-help tech support to this audience. It focuses on exploring Gen Z users' preferences for tech support content and developing platform-specific strategies to guide investments and divestments in social media platforms.

Outcome

Drawing from competitive analysis and user feedback gathered through surveys and workshop activities, identified the most effective platforms for engagement. Delivered comprehensive strategic recommendations, including design improvements to enhance user experience, content strategy guidelines tailored to audience needs, and UX writing suggestions to ensure clear and effective communication.

Building the Foundation

User Insights & Market Landscape

YouTube and Reddit's popularity calls for a closer examination in our follow-up survey, while the lower preference for Twitter and Instagram prompts further investigation. TikTok’s growing role as a tech support tool among younger users emphasizes the need to explore short-form video preferences, including optimal lengths and styles. In addition, examining effective ways to integrate videos with other formats could enhance the overall support experience.

Engaging the User

User Insights & Market Landscape

The follow-up survey aligns with secondary research, confirming that users primarily prefer YouTube for tech support due to its visual explanations and step-by-step instructions. The ability to pause and rewind is particularly valuable. However, Gen Z users find some tutorial videos too long, favoring more concise content.

On Microsoft Helps' other platforms, users engage less with Instagram and X—finding Instagram difficult for content discovery and X challenging for tracking conversations, despite appreciating discussion threads and short videos.

Based on user research, I developed personas representing different segments of Gen Z tech users.
Along with their empathy maps, these personas illustrate distinct approaches to technical challenges and solution-seeking across digital platforms. By capturing varying levels of technical proficiency and platform preferences, they help me design support resources that align with users' natural help-seeking behaviors.