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LavaCon
Tanner Volz | Technical Content Manager, iovation
October / 2016
The Multiverse Theory of
User Needs

AGENDA
2
 Content is Noise
 Who are Your Users, and Why?
 Designing a Modular Content
Experience
 Managing Modular Content
 Through the Wormhole

3
The Niceties
W h o a m I a n d W h y A m I H e r e
 Work stuff
 18ish years into tech writing & info architecture
 Designed & built numerous enterprise-scale info systems for product documentation
& training
 Personal stuff
 Musician and occasional film-maker
 Nose typically buried in films
 Contact info (sell me to spammers and I will find you)
 tv@tannervolz.com
 503-803-3201

CONTENTBLIND
Different people need different things to solve
different problems

The Multiverse Theory of User Needs

6
 Every day we all wade
through many thousands
of words and images
 2009 UC study
estimated Americans
consume 34 GB of info / day
 In 2013, studies suggested
that average social media
users encounter up to 54,000 words & 443 minutes of video per day
 We are contentblind
Our Thesis: Content is Noise …
Yo u r u s e r s c o m e f r o m d i f f e r e n t u n i v e r s e s …

7
 We look for
keywords, but need
help seeing them
 Linguistic and design
challenge
 Users buy products to solve
specific problems; anticipate those problems and tailor
content, keywords, and design
… Until We Find What We Need
S o h e l p t h e m n a v i g a t e y o u r u n i v e r s e

WHO ARE YOUR
USERS, AND WHY?
Defining User Personas and Scenarios

9
 A deceptively difficult question: Who are your buyers and, more
importantly, why do they buy your products? If multiple products,
which?
 Buyers & users share business problems, but information needs
may differ.
 For example:
 Buyer personas: Sign the checks. Sales & Marketing pitches speak to
them. Content must persuade. Tech savvy buyer may read tech docs.
 User personas: Implement & validate satisfaction of business need.
Technical documentation is roadmap when implementing the solution.
Who Are You and Why Did You Buy?
W h a t p r o b l e m d o e s t h e p r o d u c t h e l p y o u s o l v e ?

10
At iovation, writers develop user persona breakdown w/
Product, Sales, Marketing, Client Support. Personas
include:
 Fraud analysts study and understand fraud and crime
 Fraud or risk managers design implementations to address these
trends
 User experience and web designers balance improved
authentication experiences with risk of bad users gaining access
 Web software engineers code the iovation integration into their
web or mobile apps (or both)
Example: High Level iovation User Personas
W h a t p r o b l e m d o e s i o v a t i o n h e l p y o u s o l v e ?

11
 Design parallel information experiences for each persona.
 Each persona brings litany of use cases; before you can design a
successful content multiverse, build a user needs taxonomy to understand
use cases.
 User needs taxonomy maps user personas to specific problems that they
need to solve
Develop a User Needs Taxonomy
M a p p r o d u c t u s e c a s e s t o u s e r p e r s o n a s
User
Use case 1
Use case 2
Use case 3

12
User Needs Taxonomy
lays out:
 Business needs / pain
points
 Relevant variables, such
as industry vertical
 Common challenges
 Win / loss & financial
analysis
 Cross-department
dependencies / effects
Anatomy of a User Needs Taxonomy
O r , a t a x o n o m y … t a x o n o m y
Use case 1
Industry
Region
Business
needs
Pain 1
Pain 2
Challenges
Time
Resource
s

13
 Fraud team lead at an online retailer needs help with:
 Chronic problem with criminals using stolen credit cards…
 To submit purchases…
 Resulting in expensive charge-backs or penalties.
 User Experience or Web Designer at a financial institution needs to:
 Help the Fraud team reduce account takeover…
 While improving a poor authentication experience…
 By reducing painful login steps such as captchas.
 For these examples, these specifics help us recommend:
 Where we integrate, and how
 What initial configuration steps are needed
 Who will contribute to implementation, and how
User Needs Examples
i o v a t i o n e x a m p l e s o f p a r a l l e l u n i v e r s e s

14
Neighboring Content Universes
i o v a t i o n e x a m p l e s o f p a r a l l e l u n i v e r s e s
Subscriber 2:
Finance
Subscriber 1:
Retail
API Reference
 Account takeover scenarios
are shared
 High friction authentication
unique to Suscriber 1
 Fraud prevention concepts
mostly apply to Subscriber
1, but overlap with
Authentication concepts for
Subscriber 2
 Web integration is largely
identical; Subscriber 2 also
includes Mobile SDK
 All API reference material is
100% common
Mobile
SDK
Account
Takeover
fraud
scenarios
Iovation Fraud
Prevention
concepts
Iovation
Customer
Authentication
concepts
Auth
friction
Web
integration
Use cases
Concept
s
Integration
Reference

15
What Does a User Needs Taxonomy Look Like?
N o b o d y s a i d t e c h w r i t i n g w a s e a s y

DESIGNING A
MODULAR
CONTENT
EXPERIENCEModularize content to support parallel content
universes

17
 Content modules are like single lego pieces; each is one part of a
kit.
 Similarly, each content module serves one goal:
 Procedural: How to do something (“Walking to the Bakery”)
 Conceptual: What something is (“What is a Bakery”)
 Process: How something works (”The Lifecycle of a Scone, From Sugar to
Sewer”)
 Reference: List of facts (“Scone Ingredients”)
Content Modularization: What and Why?
T h e f i n e a r t o f r e c o m b i n a t i o n

18
 A topic, or article, collects related modules focused on a single content goal.
 Each module is about one aspect of the topic’s goal.
 Accomplish this, and you can recombine content modules (aka, cutely, chunks) to
serve many different user needs.
Modularization: How Does it Work?
A K A T h e F i n e A r t o f R e c o m b i n a t i o n
Image credit: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/profile/2351-whitefang/

19
 Take an article that’s a mess of intermingled content types…
Tagging Disorganized Content
I t ’ s a b i t l i k e o r g a n i z i n g a h o a r d e r ’ s g a r d e n s h e d
Procedure
Reference
A bunch of
concepts
Some unrelated
reference content
Process
Random collection of
proceduresProcess diagram that
probably should have come
first

20
 Break it down, tag it, and reassemble it into chunks
 Unrelated content belongs in another topic
 Ruthlessly kill repetition
 Write once, then reuse, reuse, reuse
Creating and Assembling Modular Content
C o n s o l i d a t e a n d r e d u c e
Series of related
procedures
Introductory concept
Supporting
reference
material
Process overview with
“how it works”
diagram

21
 Focus: Each module answers a single question.
 Don’t repeat: Say everything once.
 Short and sweet: If it takes more than a few sentences to explain a
concept, you may be trying to explain a second concept. Create another
module.
 Label all modules: Use ridiculously obvious headings that speak to user
needs.
 Mix it up: Some content needs complex process diagrams. Some need
simple reference tables. Use all of the tools available to you.
 Templatize: Content, like formatting, benefits from templates. What content
should a concept include? Figure it out and make it a template.
The Art of Writing Modular Content
T h e r e a r e c o u n t l e s s b o o k s a n d c l a s s e s o n t h e t o p i c

22
A new topic on reducing Account Takeover fraud includes
the following modules:
 “What is Account Takeover” - Conceptual module that defines Account
Takeover. Use it anywhere we talk about Account Takeover.
 “How Business Rules Help Stop Account Takeover” - Process module
about features we will use (iovation business rules) to solve the problem,
with a diagram to illustrate.
 “Defining Business Rules to Stop Account Takeover” - Procedural
module that walks through setting up the business rules.
 “Account Takeover Parameters Reference” - Reference module with all
the technical details needed to set up the rules.
iovation Example
B u i l d i n g a t o p i c o n a c c o u n t t a k e o v e r

23
These tenets are all inherited from established structured writing practices.
They emphasize semantic tagging of content, strict modularization, reuse,
multi-lingual content management, and on-demand content assembly. Read up
on these.
 Information Mapping: http://www.informationmapping.com/en/
 DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture): https://www.oasis-
open.org/committees/dita/faq.php
Structured Writing Resources
S e e a l s o …

MANAGING
MODULAR
CONTENTItalian Herb Mix is fine until you just need some
basil

25
Slice / dice content forever but without a way to manage it, this is what awaits you:
Modular Content is Nothing Without CMS
T h e h e r b m i x m e t a p h o r w o r k s b u t w e ’ r e s t i c k i n g w i t h L e g o s

26
What is Content Management?
To o l s y o u n e e d t o b u i l d w o r m h o l e s a c r o s s u n i v e r s e s
Image credit: Jeff Pellettierhttp://photos.hgtv.com/photos/viewer/lego-storage-/basement-lego-lounge-
with-built_in-storage-system_1

27
Just some of what a good content management system provides:
 Topic and asset management including versioning and publishing
workflows
 Authoring with both WYSIWYG and code editing support
 Extensibility to incorporate web-standard technologies
 Content reuse down to the modular level
 Variables for brand names, verticals, etc.
 Content conditions for different scenarios, such as different outputs
(HTML v PDF) or classes of users
 Semantic tagging of content, and separation of content from formatting
 SEO management, particularly important for public content
Defining Technical Content Management
A b o t t o m l e s s t o p i c ; t h e s e a r e a f e w t h i n g s t h a t m a t t e r t o u s

28
 We use MindTouch, a SaaS solution with robust content creation tools,
availability and performance, and structured authoring features
 Keyword metatags enable us to track both content type (such as
“procedure”) and substance (such as “Managing Users”); It’s very easy to
find the content we need, when we need it; also ensures excellent SEO
flexibility if we take any content public
 Our stylesheets (CSS) handle all of our formatting for HTML and PDF; the
authoring experience is entirely focused on content
 We heavily reuse content to serve different purposes, with variables to
manage terminology changes
 Permissions allow different users to see only what they need
Overview of Content Management at iovation
W h a t w e d o , i n 5 b u l l e t s

29
 We store reusable content (topics and modules) in a dedicated area; all of this can be
reused anywhere within the content hierarchy
 This is one of the most powerful tenets of the content multiverse: the same
content can exist, in parallel, in many places at once
Reusing and Transforming Content
A l l o w c o n t e x t t o d e t e r m i n e w h a t u s e r s w i l l s e e

30
With simple variable statements, brand names change on-the-fly in topics that
are reused across product lines.
Reusing and Transforming Content
A l l o w c o n t e x t t o d e t e r m i n e w h a t u s e r s w i l l s e e

31
Using privileges to manage the end-user experience:
 MindTouch provides great tools for showing different content to different users
 Groups of users can be set to see only specific hierarchies or part of topics
 User who subscribes to one product only sees content for that product
Using Permissions to Hide Content
R e d u c i n g n o i s e b y e n t i r e l y e l i m i n a t i n g i r r e l e v a n t c o n t e n t
Hidden
content

THROUGH THE
WORMHOLE
What does this mean for the user experience?

33
 Now that you have:
 Profiled your
different types of
users
 Anticipated the
unique content
needs for each
 Broken your content
down into reusable
chunks
 You can build your
content universes.
Designing Parallel Information Universes
R e u s a b l e m o d u l a r c o n t e n t w a s m a d e f o r t h i s

34
 Assemble chunks into information universes for all user types:
 Use variables to target text to use cases – brand names, verticals,
features, etc.
 Use big bold headers and organizers that target business needs
and make navigation RIDCULOUSLY EASY. For a universe of blue
legos:
ORGANIZING BLUE LEGOS INTO BLUE BOXES.
 Or for a universe of green legos:
ORGANIZING GREEN LEGOS INTO GREEN BOXES.
 Use permissions to hide topics that a given user doesn’t need, and
combine permissions with variables to hide inline content.
Designing Parallel Information Universes
R e u s a b l e m o d u l a r c o n t e n t w a s m a d e f o r t h i s

35
An integration engineer follows distinct paths depending which product the organization
bought from iovation. This is what it looks like to an author. We see all universes at once.
Assembling Universes
A s s e m b l i n g i n t e g r a t i o n c o n t e n t f o r d i f f e r e n t u s e r t y p e s
Customer Auth concepts
Fraud Prevention
concepts
Customer Auth workflow
Shared
procedures
Fraud Prevention
workflowFraud Prevention
procedures
Shared reference content
Reusabl
e content
iovation content repository
Customer Authentication Integration Guide
Fraud Prevention Integration Guide
Help system / knowledge base

36
And this is what it looks like to an engineer working with the Fraud Prevention
product.
Users only see their own universes
T h e n o i s e w e t a l k e d a b o u t e a r l i e r ? G o n e
Fraud Prevention Integration Guide
As far as the user is concerned, there is only one universe. It’s linear, easy to
follow, and free of noise.

37
 At iovation, this is just the
beginning.
 How to incorporate
content hosted in entirely
separate systems, with
very different delivery
models?
 At what point is designing
for reuse more complex
than is beneficial?
What’s Next?
E x p a n d i n g u s e c a s e s t o v e r y d i f f e r e n t u s e r m o d e l s

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The Multiverse Theory of User Needs

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The Multiverse Theory of User Needs