The document discusses opportunities for technical writers and designers at Atlassian to work more collaboratively by applying user experience design principles and techniques to documentation. It provides examples of how designers' research into users and analytics can inform documentation, and explores workshops and exercises the teams can do together like empathy mapping, user stories, and sparring sessions to critique drafts and provide feedback. The goal is to evaluate documentation through a user-centered lens and ensure it meets users' needs.
4. Atlassian has a very strong Design team
Traditionally, tech writing has played a very traditional
role
There was opportunity to work together, as these
teams have the same basic goals
Some background
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6. Atlassian design principles
A few of our design
principles:
Be familiar
Grow with me
Give me clarity
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7. Almost any UX principle you encounter can be
applied to documentation
Android
Mac OSX
Facebook
Designers are great at working toward UX principles,
so they can be helpful in evaluating how well a
document meets them too
Looking at the docs as part of
UX
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8. What role is a feature
targeting?
What is assumed skills/
background, etc.
How do we best reach a certain
type of user?
What are their preferences?
Their fears?
Audience/Persona
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10. Realization! Designers have access to lots of customer
information!
Customer interviews & site visits
Usability tests
Usage information on existing features
Long-term roadmap
Leveraging siloed data
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11. Piggybacking usability
testing
Do we need documentation?
If so, what are the FAQs?
Piggybacking analytics
results
Measuring success
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13. Empathy maps help bring focus
on the user
Use them to workshop how a
user might feel in a before and
after situation
Work backward from the after
situation
Workshopping: Empathy maps
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14. Great for moving ideas
around
Great for separate ->
collaborative
brainstorming
Cheap, mobile, fun
Invest in Post-its
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15. Basically a critique session
Brings group thinking into design
and planning
A check that the goals have been
met with the prototype
Workshopping: Sparring
sessions
Goals of sparring sessions:
To assure design quality by
critiquing design early and often
To drive towards outcomes/
decisions quickly
To keep each other in the loop
and learn from each others
approaches and products
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16. Prior, a TW sends out:
The draft to discuss
A list that covers the
goals of the document
Sparring with TWs
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17. Timebox, timebox, timebox!
If your team is given to negativity, try a positives-only 5
minutes
Try to make sure everyone is heard - using a checklist
or give everyone 1 minute to list feedback
Leave with at least 3 action items
Tips for running a sparring session
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18. 6-ups drive focus on ideal
solutions
Get you out of word-thinking
Good way to build on each
others ideas
Workshopping: 6-ups
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19. How does a user get to a
feature?
Controlled process?
From many different areas with
different goals?
What does a user do before?
What does a user usually do
next?
Workshopping: User stories
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20. Use colored stickers to
vote
Build out your doco plan
based on the problem areas
Taking user stories to the next level
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21. How we made this
happen
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22. Look for a team that 鍖nds value in
Design and Tech Writing
Look for a Designer who sees the
value in docs
Look for a new project thats running
lean and has some momentum
Look for projects that are data-driven
Find the right projects
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23. Check out some design
principles
Read about design techniques
Follow some UX blogs
Write a documentation
experience plan
Explore & expand
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