Microsoft Office Online Content Creation Case Studies

About the First Step of Office.com

First Step – Office.com is a content platform that provides information on how to use Microsoft’s flagship Office products. We have continuously added content with each version upgrade of the Office products, resulting in high access and repeat visit numbers, making it one of the most popular sections of Office.com. The reason for its popularity lies in the fact that it goes beyond mere feature introductions, specifically targeting home users by highlighting practical usage scenarios and convenient ways to utilize the products.

 

In Japan, it is common to see books on the use of application software prominently displayed in bookstores, but the sales of such books are not as significant overseas. For this reason, content originating from Japan that encourages the use of Office products in a wide range of scenarios is gaining attention internationally. It is available in 18 languages in the Asia-Pacific region alone and is offered in over 40 languages worldwide.

 

Human Science has been assisting with this "First Step" corner for over 10 years since its initial planning, responding to the need to create English content first for multilingual deployment.

 

 

Request from Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd.

I want to create interesting and fun content!

The main request was to come up with scenarios that would make users want to try it out, assuming the usage scenes for home users. In particular, there was a request to focus on visually appealing subjects that would make people want to create something themselves.

The request was to understand the features of new functions while operating a preview version of the application before its release, and to create articles while imagining the expected usage scenarios at home.

 

Voice of Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd.

We have been requesting Human Science to produce this content for over 10 years since the Office 2000 series.

This time, especially since I am concurrently handling many other projects, I wanted to proceed quickly and efficiently.

Therefore, at the start of the project, we shared the direction of the content, and afterwards, we established regular review meetings to confirm the tone of the subject matter and the content scenario during those review meetings.

This approach was correct. Instead of reviewing each application separately, having all the writers responsible for each application present together allowed us to align the overall touch of the content and create the content as envisioned.

 

From Human Science representatives

This time, we need to advance a total of 300 pages of writing, including revisions and new creations, within 3 months, so we have established a team consisting of 1 project manager and 3 technical writers.

Each writer not only has the awareness of creating content but also has the mindset of being a user of Office products, and they worked hard to create interesting content.

One of the writers created the manuscript with the scenario of "creating an original manuscript paper in Word" in mind, imagining it would be used by elementary school children.

Additionally, the writer responsible for the OneNote recipe book scenario happily shared that they uploaded photos of the dishes they cooked based on it to their blog.

Since the creators were able to enjoy the writing process, I feel that the content has turned out to be appealing for the users as well.

 

 

Related Services

Creation of Manuals and User Guides

Manual Creation In-house Support Service

Manual Evaluation, Analysis, and Improvement Proposal Service