Adaptive Help & Contextual Learning

Universal Creative, the team that designs and builds the attractions at Universal Parks & Resorts, had recently deployed PMWeb, a robust project management system that changed how architects, financial analysts, legal counsel, and outside vendors did their daily work. The system was powerful but hard to learn, and adoption suffered as a result.

As UX Designer, I led the content strategy for WalkMe, the digital adoption platform selected to close that gap. I interviewed PMWeb's subject matter experts, inventoried the existing training content, built four personas, and mapped how WalkMe's tools would fit alongside the video and documentation training Universal Creative already offered.

The result was a content strategy plan covering all seven WalkMe tools, each with its own use cases, writing guide, and success metrics. The product team used the plan to build and maintain the Walk-Thrus, tooltips, and launchers going forward.

Universal Creative is responsible for designing and building the attractions at Universal Parks & Resorts, which includes four amusement parks and a resort. At the time, the team was also constructing a fifth park and second resort in Beijing. It's a cross-disciplinary group of architects, designers, engineers, financial analysts, legal counsel, and project managers, supported by its own IT department. PMWeb replaced a much simpler set of tools for that entire team and changed processes some employees had followed for years. It was powerful enough to manage budgets, schedules, documentation, and approvals for a project as large as a new theme park, but that power made it dense and hard to learn, and traditional training couldn't keep up with how often the system changed.

The stakes were highest for the external vendors bidding on construction work. There are only a couple of companies in the U.S. building amusement parks at this scale, and the construction process is far more specialized than standard construction. PMWeb's bid, contract, and change-order workflows reflected that: bids required specific legal documentation and a defined structure just to be considered, and a vendor who submitted an incomplete form or got the structure wrong risked being disqualified from the bid outright.

The clearest evidence came directly from users. One architect working with Creative as an external vendor said, during research, that he didn't have time to read through a 60-plus page guide to find the answer to one question. That was the real problem: it wasn't a lack of training content, it was that help needed to be available inside the task, not in a separate document users had to go find.

Problem statement: WalkMe was intended to provide PMWeb users with contextual learning and adaptive help accessible directly within the system. Current training methods weren't adequately preparing users with the competency required to navigate PMWeb successfully, which was causing process delays that resulted in missed milestones or deadlines. WalkMe addressed this gap by providing users with relevant on-screen guidance, tooltips, automation, and access to documentation based on their location within the application. Success was measured through user errors, support inquiries, and survey feedback.

To make sure WalkMe complemented rather than duplicated Universal Creative's existing training, I mapped it against the other channels already in place: instructor-led classes, video, and documentation. WalkMe's role stayed narrow: on-screen guidance, automation, tool tips, and surveys, plus links out to the documentation and video that already existed, rather than a replacement for either. View the training ecosystem map ↗

The content strategy plan gave Universal Creative's product team a framework they could execute against independently, building and maintaining the Walk-Thrus, tooltips, and launchers going forward. PMWeb and WalkMe launched together, so there was no pre-WalkMe baseline on this platform to measure against; support tickets and error rates couldn't be compared to a "before" state that never existed. Success was tracked going forward instead, through the seventh tool in the framework: usage analytics showed which content needed rework, which launchers went unused, and where users were still dropping off.

This project was less about designing screens and more about designing a system for learning, one that had to work for an internal project manager and an external architect who only opens the tool a few times a year, without treating them the same way. Grounding the strategy in real process mapping and real user feedback, rather than defaulting to more documentation, is what turned a 60-page guide into contextual help that showed up when and where it was needed.

To comply with a non-disclosure agreement, some confidential details have been omitted or generalized in this case study. All analysis and opinions are my own and don't necessarily reflect the views of Universal Creative or NBCUniversal.