How Microsoft Ireland Home And Entertainment Division Builds Customer Feedback Into Localized Products Liam Cronin :Microsoft EPDC Wednesday 19-November-2003

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How Microsoft Ireland Home And Entertainment
Division Builds Customer Feedback Into Localized
Products Liam Cronin Microsoft
EPDCWednesday 19-November-2003
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Agenda

• Who Are The Works Product Customers?
• Primary And Secondary Research
• Product Support Services (PSS)
• Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)
• Usability Testing
• Newsgroups

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Who Are Works Product Customers?

• Retail market Households with a Windows PC
• Consumers that have low to intermediate PC skills
• Typically not influencers technology (less
  enthused)
• Those that do NOT conduct work using the home PC
• Have at least two people in their household
• OEM market OEM partners HP, NEC, Fujitsu
  Siemens, Dell, Toshiba, Medion etc

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Primary Research Background Objectives

• Microsoft wants to understand more about Works
  users to aid in product feature planning and
  positioning within the marketplace. To this end,
  online quantitative research was conducted in the
  United States, Germany and France in June-2003
• The primary objective of this research is to
  identify user wants and needs for key
  features/components to be offered in future
  versions of the Works software
• Other objectives include
• Identify the value of Microsoft Works or Works
  Suite among users
• Determine primary product usage applications
• Rate impressions of Works or Works Suite on key
  product dimensions

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Who Uses Works
Total Users Total Users Total Users Total Users Primary Users Primary Users Primary Users Primary Users
Total A Total US B Total German C Total France Total A Total US B Total German C Total France
Base Total Respondents (978) (419) (300) (259) (978) (419) (300) (259)
Adult Female 67 72 66 56 46 48 41 43
Self 45 46 45 42 36 37 34 34
Other Adult Female 22 26 21 14 10 11 7 9
Adult Male 69 68 72 68 48 46 50 53
Self 45 45 43 47 38 36 37 44
Other Adult Male 24 23 29 21 10 10 13 9
Children Under 10 3 5 1 4 1 1 -
Children 10 17 19 18 21 19 5 4 8 5
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First Works Version Purchased Or An Update User?

• Most participants are using their first Works
  product. In France, even fewer updates are
  observed.
• For those who have updated their program, OEM is
  again the acquisition source cited most for this
  earlier version.

Total A Total US B Total Germany C Total France
Base Updated from Earlier Version (301) (146) (106) (49)
Came Installed 69 72 64 59
Bought Retail 18 18 19 17
Bought Online 3 4 4 1
Received as Gift 9 5 12 23
Other 1 1 1 1
Of these
Base Total Respondents
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Usage of Works Features

• In all regions, Word Processor is the feature
  used most, followed by Address Books/Contacts in
  US and Germany and Outlook Express in France.

Past Six-Month Feature Usage Past Six-Month Feature Usage Past Six-Month Feature Usage Past Six-Month Feature Usage
Total A Total US B Total Germany C Total France
Base Total Respondents (978) (419) (300) (259)
Word Processor
Yes 85 80 88 91
No 12 17 9 7
Not Aware 3 3 3 2
Address Book/Contacts
Yes 63 62 66 62
No 33 33 32 35
Not Aware 4 5 2 3
Outlook Express Email Client
Yes 60 58 50 78
No 33 33 42 20
Not Aware 7 9 9 2
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Usefulness of Features

• Similar to usage, perceptions of usefulness are
  highest for Word Processor in all countries,
  followed distantly by Address Books/Contacts in
  US and Germany and Outlook Express in France.
  Pre-designed Templates and In-Product Help obtain
  a higher usefulness in US and France than in
  Germany.

Rating Very/Somewhat Useful Rating Very/Somewhat Useful Rating Very/Somewhat Useful Rating Very/Somewhat Useful
Total A Total US B Total Germany C Total France
Base Total Respondents (978) (419) (300) (259)
Word Processor 83 79 86 90
Address Books/Contacts 60 61 62 58
Outlook Express Email Client 57 55 48 76
Greeting Cards, Newsletters Other Pub. Projects 50 51 51 53
Pre-designed Templates 38 49 26 40
Mailings 44 46 53 30
In-Product Help 41 45 34 47
Spreadsheet 52 45 57 63
Database 41 38 46 38
Format Gallery 36 36 33 37
Calendar/Scheduling 33 35 39 24
My Projects 24 29 17 23
Portfolio Feature 28 22 23 41






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Frequency of Use

• While Word Processing and Address Books are most
  useful, these applications do not generally
  obtain daily usage. Outlook Express yields the
  most usage overall.

Frequency of Use Frequency of Use Frequency of Use Frequency of Use
Total Daily Several Xs a Week Once a Week Less than Once a Week
Base Total Respondents (978)
Word Processor 83 23 51 27
Address Books/Contacts 60 30 47 23
Outlook Express Email Client 57 61 28 11
Greeting Cards, Newsletters Other Pub. Projects 50 5 33 62
Pre-designed Templates 38 7 35 58
Mailings 44 12 41 48
In-Product Help 41 8 42 50
Spreadsheet 52 12 50 38
Database 41 13 45 42
Format Gallery 36 10 42 48
Calendar/Scheduling 33 30 46 24
My Projects 24 14 46 40
Portfolio Feature 28 11 49 41






Of these
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Importance of PC Tasks

• While email and Instant messaging and surfing the
  Internet are the most important PC tasks in US
  and France, word processing is more important in
  Germany than surfing the Internet.
• Keeping address information, managing personal
  finances and video editing are more important in
  France than in either US or Germany.
• Travel planning is more prevalent in US and
  France versus Germany.
• US participants are more likely to state that
  running a small or home business is important
  compared to Germany or France.

Rating Extremely/Very Important Rating Extremely/Very Important Rating Extremely/Very Important Rating Extremely/Very Important
Total A Total US B Total Germany C Total France
Base Total Respondents (978) (419) (300) (259)
Email or Instant Messaging 91 91 86 95
Surfing the Internet 78 89 48 96
Word Processing 77 73 84 81
Keeping addresses/contact info. 65 62 63 74
Photo editing/Electronic scrap booking 49 46 52 52
Managing personal finances or budget 46 45 41 59
Creating spreadsheets/math/financial calculations 43 40 44 51
Creating greeting cards/other pub. Projects 42 43 42 47
Collecting/organizing/burning CDs 41 38 32 28






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European Product Support Services Relationship

• PSS are based in-country though Microsoft is
  currently evaluating placing 1st and 2nd line
  support in India
• PSS place bugs / problems directly into Ireland
  team Raid (problem) database throughout the
  product cycle
• PSS provide Ireland with most popular features
  being used in the product, which helps our future
  planning
• PSS can review the product teams specs and give
  feedback at an early stage in the planning
  process
• PSS will review Beta software before we release
• Microsoft Ireland will always look at the top 20
  PSS call generators before planning for the next
  release of a product

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Original Equipment Manufacturers Relationship

• Key European OEM for Home and Entertainment
  Division are HP, NEC, Fujitsu Siemens, Dell,
  Toshiba, Medion etc
• The key method we use to achieve our objectives
  is the annual visit by a Microsoft team to the
  OEM. During these visits, key OEM employees meet
  with the Microsoft team for anything from 3 hours
  to a day long event
• The site visits to OEMs are scheduled in
  June/July time-frame and enable HED to get to
  hear OEM customer problems first hand which can
  be fed back into future iterations of products
  through bug fixes or new features
• Advantageous to see OEM operations through
  touring their facilities to better understand
  their structure and processes. Learn from OEM
  experience and input this back into the retail
  product

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Brief Overview Of Usability TestingUsability in
the product cycle
Planning

• Establish usability goals
• Visit customers
• Test paper prototypes

Development

• Test online prototypes
• Test code
• Redesign and iterate

Quality assurance

• Test comparatively
• Test in the field (beta)
• Begin next version

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Brief Overview Of Usability TestingUsability
questions

• Questions usability testing can answer
• Can users discover how to do a task?
• Which design is better?
• How many errors do users make and how serious are
  those errors?
• Questions usability testing cant answer
• Is there a demand for the product?
• Will people buy the product?

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Brief Overview Of Usability TestingUsability
testing process

• Define usability goals
• Select participants
• Develop test scenarios and tasks
• Decide on measures and plan analysis
• Run test in a lab environment
• Communicate findings to product teams
• Follow up on issues with product teams

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Why Usability Test?General usability benefits

• Reduce development and support costs
• Find and fix problems before shipping
• Increase productivity and efficiency
• Higher productivity and efficiency saves money
• Increase user satisfaction
• Build brand loyalty with easy-to-use products
• Show leadership in interface design
• Ease of use is a key differentiator today

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European Newsgroups Relationship

• Although the newsgroup represents only 1 of our
  customers, they are our best 1000 customers.
  These are influential in that other people look
  to them for advice
• Newsgroup information helps us make better
  decisions about our business, and also gives
  better feedback to the team on the product and
  the features
• Understand any linguistic issues from European
  customers
• Understand what upgrade problems customers
  encountering
• Understand what version of product customers are
  using
• In Conclusion we should all be spending more time
  talking to European customers, feeling their
  pain, and making sure they know the truth, which
  is that we care about their experience with our
  products