Adobe user research & usability testing

Adobe is a globally recognised brand known for its innovative software solutions in the fields of creativity, design, and digital experiences. Adobe offers a diverse range of products and services, including Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop and many more. Adobe's mission is to enable individuals and organisations to transform their ideas into compelling digital experiences, making it a leader in the creative and digital marketing industries.

Adobe’s Australian arm engaged Luminary for what was originally one project but became three projects that ran concurrently. This work focused on different products and research objectives.

What we did

Operating as a global giant, US Adobe is the parent company, although it was Adobe Australia that was seeking a UX partner to explore how consumers use their products and how they should position them. Adobe Australia was seeking data and research backing in which to justify changes and direction within the Australian market, and ultimately answer the research questions and assumptions that they had inherited from their US parent. Initially, Adobe engaged Luminary for a single project looking at the buying and usage behaviour of the Acrobat product. Before long, an additional two projects were added to the scope, which were a usability testing project and a Creative Cloud research project.

Acrobat web user research

Adobe engaged Luminary to better understand the buying and usage behaviour of their Document Cloud product, Acrobat, in the APAC region, within six hyper-specific segments. Adobe wanted to hear from an extensive range of users, specifically micro-entrepreneurs, parents and working professionals. The users had paid accounts, free accounts or were using competitor products. The research was specifically looking at the web-only environment, as it was still a relatively new addition and was fast becoming a popular route for Acrobat users. 

Once the participants were selected, Luminary’s UX team worked with the client to create a recruitment spec and interview script and conducted a round of 16 1:1 user interviews. From there, the team synthesised the key insights that began to uncover themes, such as the cost of the licence, and the length of the free trial. Luminary was able to delve into what was free, what is freemium and what is the amount people are willing to pay. There were also instances where interview participants were using competitor products for specific functions, despite Acrobat having that functionality but not spotlighting those benefits to potential customers.

Adobe usability testing

Led by Senior UX Researcher, Matt Dalla-Rosa, the usability testing gleaned both qualitative and quantitative insights around the Creative Cloud sign-up process. The Adobe sign-up process was scrutinised by a wide range of participants, interacting with and considering plans, free trials and the information provided. The findings from the usability testing echoed similar findings from the Acrobat research project, with participants seeking to clarify what is free and what is the worth of the plans. 

Some of the usability testing showed that people used free features, but wanted to know at what point they start paying, and if there is a barrier for people who just want to do one thing. An interesting finding from the usability testing was that the concept of ‘trust’ was explored, in terms of free trials, when payment commenced and users felt prepared to use the tools they were paying for. The usability testing also found that fact-finding on the website and app was a potential issue, with users trying to understand what tools were offered, what they did and how to use them. From there, the team developed ideas and did surveys to ‘sanity-check’ those ideas before AB testing.

Creative Cloud research

Adobe Creative Cloud is a suite of applications including Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere and more. The goal of the research project was to explore customer segments and better understand the barriers to signing up and how to effectively boost conversations on people starting free trials, continuing free trials or signing up for free trials. Senior UX Design, Dean Berlingeri, led the ideation sessions and workshops with 16 participants, showing existing site and frame scenarios that would encourage participants to articulate their expectations and wants of the signup pages. The participant recruitment was based on where users were in the flow of their trial and how long they were using it. The team managed to find participants who were pre-free trial, some people in the free trial, some who had just completed their trial, some people who had stayed on to learn more, and some professionals. At the end of the interviews, quality insights come out around the value and complexity of use. 

One of the key highlights of the project was the prioritisation work. Dean guided the PO and team through this process, noting that regardless of how many ideas come out of the research, prioritisation is key. The internal Adobe team worked together to order the prioritisation of ideas in terms of their value to the user, keeping the team on track and plotting out the weight of these ideas. Dean and Senior Design, Kelvin Lin, mocked up these ideas to demonstrate how the sign-in page and additional Adobe pages could address these research-backed findings.

The ideas got further refined into tangible ideas and Dean and Senior Design, Kelvin Lin, created some visualised concepts that captured the top three ideas, to demonstrate how the sign-in page and additional Adobe pages could address these research-backed findings.