Case Study: Knowledge Share: Empowering Collective Expertise

Overview

Knowledge Share builds shared knowledge across an organization by helping team members decode terms like acronyms or internal project names. When team members encounter unfamiliar terms, Knowledge Share provides tooltip-like explanations that include a definition of a term, key contacts, and links to relevant documents.

Our Approach

For the Knowledge Share initiative, we adopted a collaborative and user-centered approach to ensure our solution resonated with both internal stakeholders and end-users:

• Everyone owns innovation: We fostered a culture where every team member—designers, product managers, engineers—could propose and champion new ideas.

• Continuous discovery: Through ongoing research and exploration, we kept refining our understanding of user challenges and opportunities.

• Aligning with user needs: Regular user interviews and feedback loops ensured our decisions were always guided by real-world problems and pain points.

• Collaborative design workshops: Cross-functional sessions brought together diverse perspectives, allowing us to co-create solutions and move forward with a shared vision.

• Concept and usability testing: Early prototypes were tested with users, providing tangible insights that shaped our iterations and helped us validate assumptions.

• Iterative design reviews: Weekly critiques and check-ins enabled us to refine the interface, streamline interactions, and maintain a high-quality user experience.

• Collaborative innovation roadmapping: We jointly developed a strategic roadmap that captured both near-term goals and long-term innovation opportunities.

• Addressing the ‘cold start’ problem: We tackled the initial content challenge by designing onboarding flows and content seeding strategies that encouraged immediate, meaningful participation.

• Internal and external launches: We piloted the solution within the organization first, incorporating internal feedback, before rolling it out externally for broader impact and success.

Our Design

We built an interface to display the tooltip explanations, a back-end workflow to allow for collaborative maintenance of the knowledge, prompts to encourage team members to create new entries as new terms were formed (e.g., new projects), and an AI component that generated an initial set of terms to mitigate the cold-start problem.

We broadened the original concept to offer users a richer, more comprehensive experience. Each component now includes a clear definition that establishes context, helping users better understand the subject. Alongside this, we integrated related materials—such as articles, case studies, and internal documentation—to deepen users’ knowledge and suggest actionable next steps. Finally, we identified key contacts who can provide further guidance, ensuring that users have direct access to the expertise and support they need to achieve their objectives.

We strengthened Grammarly’s Gen AI offering

We continued to refine this feature to strengthen the Grammarly Business value proposition by delivering more targeted, context-aware guidance. For example, when a user asks about a specific knowledge-sharing term, the GenAI capabilities can instantly provide a tailored, accurate response, ensuring that users receive timely and relevant information.

Understanding the Administrator Experience

For administrators, the challenge lies in maintaining a high-quality, relevant knowledge base while ensuring it remains both accessible and valuable. To support them, we designed intuitive tools that streamline content management and governance:

• Balancing Control and Value: Administrators can curate the information ecosystem, ensuring that every term added or edited contributes meaningfully to the organization’s collective knowledge.

• Add and Edit Terms: Through a straightforward interface, administrators can easily create new entries, refine definitions, and attach related resources—ensuring that content remains accurate and up-to-date.

• Bulk Uploading Terms: For larger-scale updates, the bulk upload feature enables admins to integrate multiple terms at once, simplifying growth and keeping content management efficient.

Addressing the Cold Start Problem

From the outset, we recognized that Knowledge Share’s effectiveness depended on cultivating a dynamic network of meaningful content. Without an initial “seed” of valuable information, it would be challenging to spark ongoing contributions or meaningful engagement. To jump-start this process, our team introduced several strategies designed to populate the platform with relevant, high-quality content right from the start:

• Bulk Upload: Quickly import large sets of terms to provide users with an immediate knowledge base.

• Pre-set Terms (Industry Packs): Offer curated packs of industry-specific terminology to deliver instant value and context.

• Prompts: Guide users with targeted suggestions, encouraging them to create or enhance entries based on their interests or expertise.

• GenAI Bulk Creation: Leverage generative AI to produce a foundational library of accurate, well-structured terms at scale.

• GenAI Maintenance: Continuously update and refine content through AI-driven insights, ensuring that the information remains fresh and valuable over time.

Outcomes

The introduction of Knowledge Share had a significant impact, not only on user perception but also on the business’s strategic direction and bottom line:

• Positive User Reception: Internal teams and beta testers provided encouraging feedback, validating the feature’s value and usability.

• Core Business Feature: Knowledge Share quickly became a central pillar of Grammarly Business, elevating the product’s overall offering and strengthening its position in the market.

• Strategic Alignment with GenAI: By seamlessly integrating with Grammarly’s GenAI initiatives, Knowledge Share reinforced the company’s long-term innovation strategy and differentiated it from competitors.

• Measurable Revenue Growth: Within just five months of launch, Knowledge Share contributed approximately $2 million in sales, underscoring its tangible business impact.