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Merging SaaS Products In A User-Centered Way — A Case Study of Overleaf and ShareLaTeX

Published: 08 May 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Mergers and acquisitions pose complex organizational and technical challenges. A user-centered approach can help ensure the success of a merger. By prioritizing the management of user expectations, by addressing change aversion and by ensuring users feel heard, a merger cannot only be made more successful, but also be perceived as a positive change by end users. This case study describes and discusses the user-centered approach taken to successfully merge two established online LaTeX editors: Overleaf and ShareLaTeX. A mixed methods approach was used to simultaneously ensure broad coverage of the user base (quantitative; relevant because these were established products) and also in-depth understanding of their issues, opinions and motivations (qualitative; relevant to making informed design decisions). This user-centered approach was successful in helping the company to set a path for the merger, to adapt in the face of new data, and to create the foundation for sustained growth.

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Cited By

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  • (2022)i-LaTeX : Manipulating Transitional Representations between LaTeX Code and Generated DocumentsProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517494(1-16)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
  • (2022)The Suitability of Software as a Service (SAAS) as the Replacement to Traditional Software2022 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)10.1109/CSCI58124.2022.00348(1931-1935)Online publication date: Dec-2022

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI EA '21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
May 2021
2965 pages
ISBN:9781450380959
DOI:10.1145/3411763
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Published: 08 May 2021

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  1. case study
  2. latex editors
  3. mergers
  4. mixed methods research
  5. user-centered design

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View all
  • (2022)i-LaTeX : Manipulating Transitional Representations between LaTeX Code and Generated DocumentsProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517494(1-16)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
  • (2022)The Suitability of Software as a Service (SAAS) as the Replacement to Traditional Software2022 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)10.1109/CSCI58124.2022.00348(1931-1935)Online publication date: Dec-2022

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