Highlights from my first Technical Communication Conference

Session 1: DOCUMENTATION STRATEGY by Sachin Shenoy

Topics of Discussion: Levels of Strategy

                                       Functional Strategy

                                       Operational Strategy

                                       The need to have a strategy

The session began with a discussion on the four levels into which strategy can be divided for an enterprise. These levels are Corporate, Business, Function, and Operation. Depending on the organizational structure, often these levels are merged. 

Both Functional and Operational strategies are important for a good documentation strategy. 

Functional Strategy:

The functional strategy consists of how will a function contribute. This depends on four things:

• People: An enterprise needs to decide on the product’s maturity level and the documentation they want for the product. For enterprises at the early stage of business, they need someone who is an expert in the field. The enterprises that need to maintain their documentation can hire freshers as well.  
• Process: This involves planning, setting goals, execution, measurement of progress, and localization.
• Goals: Goals are set, keeping in mind the objectives as well as the scope. It is to which everything else aligns.
• Resources: Resources include tools, IA models, style guide, templates as well as budget. These are long-term decisions and are there to ease a writer’s work.

Why do we need more strategy?

We need strategy due to the:

• Change in technology.
• Change in delivery.
• Change in Consumption pattern.
• Change in Need of training.

Operational Strategy:

Operational Strategy is the day-to-day execution and the key to all strategy. It depends on:

• Persona: Every topic caters to a persona, not everyone will follow the article. So explore who the persona will be and write accordingly.
• Use Case: “WHY?” is the most important thing to answer in an article. 
• Delivery format: Use different types of formats like visuals, auditory, read&write as well as kinesthetics, and try catering to diverse audiences. 
• Design: Experiment with the design and keep modifying. Try to make readers more comfortable and lessen the cognitive load.

Shenoy advocated developing skills, as the processes in the technical world are changing, and one needs to keep evolving with them. So, one should keep thinking about improving their skills and getting specialization in their chosen profile. He also spoke about the 4C MODEL, which includes Creation, Curation, Contribution, and Computerisation. 

Session 2: STRATEGIC WRITING FOR UX by Torrey Podmajersky

Topics of discussion: What UX writing is?

                                    UX Writing processes

                                     Voice and Usability

The session began with the discussion on the history of documentation, dating back to the Hollerith Tabular Machine, of how the UX texts used to be earlier when they had a fixed textbox the UX writers had to stay within. 

What is UX writing?

UX writing works in a cycle of attract, convert, onboard, engage, support, and transform. 

Voice and Usability: 

Voice:

-Casual

-Not bossy but expert

-Not silly but fun

-Clean

The voice should have a concept and vocabulary. The verbosity should be brief, grammar simple with the correct use of punctuation and capitalization. As a UX writer, the UX should be simple, trustworthy, having empathy for the readers, it should be personal using personal pronouns, it should be neighbourly and gratifying.

Usability:

-Accessible: Available in language people are proficient in.

-Purposeful: The write-up should have a purpose as to what can a person get from the application.

-Concise: Using less space, express more.

-Conversational: Use words and phrases that people are familiar with.

-Clear: Make the information as clear as possible.

UX Writing process:

The UX writing process begins with analysis. While analysing, one should ask these questions:

-What will the terms for conversation be?

-What is the purpose to satisfy, i.e., the use case?

• Include the stakeholders in the process as they help in providing the idea of where the audience is coming from. 
• The writing approach should be easy.
• Check through all the languages.
• Don’t put links all over the website.

Session 3: DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO ENHANCE INFORMATION EXPERIENCE by Ashwini V. Mathad

Topics of discussion: How data-driven approach helps with improving information experience.

To improve and enhance information experience, a writer should follow the approach of analysing, acting, and observing.

The data-driven approach includes the analysis of the Search usage report. This gives the writer insight into what terms to use in the write-ups and know what information the customers are coming to the website. One can also search for keywords and use them in the articles.

Customer feedback is another important data that help to enhance information experience. Customer feedback can be categorised into three: Page voting, Page comments and Customer Surveys. 

Page voting helps you see which pages are getting more likes by the customers to replicate what is working for the customers. Page comments are direct and specific, as the customers provide specific comments and doubts. Customer surveys are a generic way to gauge customer feedback.

Another way to improve information experience is case studies. Case studies help figure out which articles are confusing and analysing if, despite heavy traffic on the page, there is content that isn’t helping the customers.

One should always remember that Data-driven approach is only for online platforms and that for different insights, different goals are needed to be set. Nevertheless, it does have its limitations.

Session 4: BIG PICTURE, SMALL PICTURE AND THE ART OF FRAMING by Edwin Skan

Topics of Discussion: How do we earn respect as technical writers?

                                     Role of picture frames

                                     Does a technical writer need to learn about the technical domain?

                                     Power of framing 

                                     Reframing to solve problems

The session began with the discussion as to “How do we earn respect as Technical Writers?”

The answer to this according to Skan is by sharpening our skills, i.e., investing in getting better; maximizing the value of what we do; connecting with other people; and adding more value to the company, i.e., doing more than your job description.

Next, he spoke about the Role of picture frames:

• Beautifies a picture
• Provides depth into the work of art
• Set a context

Framing helps us improve our understanding, eliminate noise, facilitate better decisions, influence behaviour.

While answering the question as to whether technical communicators need to learn about the technical domain, Skan listed its pros and cons. The pros being, the knowledge of the technical domain will help a writer to write better, you will add more value to your role, while the cons of not having technical knowledge will be that you might get replaced by someone who knows the technical domain better, but then you will be able to represent the customers better as they as well don’t have technical knowledge. 

Next, he spoke about the art of framing, Framing is an art of influencing the choices we make by focusing attention within the field of meaning. The power of framing os how do you say something and not what you actually end up saying. Framing is a cerebral activity, so reframing things can actually solve problems. It is how do you frame questions, that change the response to them. 

To better frame an article to make the customers better understand it, use rhetorical devices in the documentation, see if certain terms have a negative connotation and replace them and lastly, improve from the customer feedback.

Suggested reads by Skan:

-Thinking fast and slow by Dan Ariely

-Predictability Irrationability by Daniel Kahne

-The power of framing by Gail T. Fairhurst

Session 5: ENHANCING THE ENHANCEMENT PAGE by Paresh Naik and Anagha Deshpande

Topics of discussion: Analyzing the metrics

                                     Issues with a page

                                     The enhancement process                           

The session began with Anagha giving us an example of how her company tried improving the product enhancement page. As the product enhancement page has all the details of the product, one needs to pay special attention to making it easily accessible and comprehensible for the users. To do so, one needs to analyse the metrics first.

Analyzing the metrics: The factors which cause the enhancement of a page are as follows-

• Unique page views
• Page engagement
• Is this page helpful?
• Site search
• Video metrics

Analysing these factors help improve customer delight.

The issues faced while analysing and implementing the changes are failing to institutionalise changes, the approach being inconsistent and not sustainable in the long run. 

Anagha and Paresh suggested that to enhance any page, one should use more visuals and shorten the lines. Including stakeholders in the writing and reviewing process as well, helps in the process. One should also ensure that the page is correctly visible in all formats. What should be kept in mind is that small changes can affect many.

The enhancement process:

The enhancement process includes the following,

Analysis of the page ==> Enhancement ==> Deciding on the Layout ==> Brainstorming ===> Coming up with the changes

Session 6: TOWARDS AN EASIER USER JOURNEY: REDUCING SERVICE REQUESTS by Rakhi Banerjee and Karthik Gandham

Topics of discussion: Reducing service requests to 40%

                                    The two approaches to deal with customer requests.

                                    User journey

                 Service request progression

             Identifying patterns

             Informed Investment decisions:

                                     Techniques to reduce service requests

The session started with a note of reducing service requests up to 40%. Customers raise service requests for various reasons, some of them being, bad documentation, bad service, application issues, etc. 

The two different ways to deal with service requests are Reactive and Proactive approaches. For example, if a customer raises a service request at Swiggy saying their order is not delivered yet, Swiggy can handle it in two ways. It can talk to the restaurant and make sure that the restaurant never repeats this mistake with other customers, or it can go to all its partner restaurants and make sure this never happens again with any party. The first way is called the reactive approach, i.e., reacting to the request, while the second one is a proactive approach where the company proactively makes sure not to get a similar kind of customer request.

User journey: 

A user first tries to solve the issue on their own, after that the users try the embedded/labelled help as well as the contextual help that is being provided by the website, next the users ask their colleagues and refer to Google or other Search engines, failing which the users try online help/guides, and finally raise service requests when none of the methods works.

There is also a possibility that the users raise requests without following the above journey. 

Service request progression:

The first thing Support does is resolve the service request, after which the Support may raise a bug for documentation or the Development team. What is important here is to figure out as to why were the users not able to solve the issue on their own.

But what happens here is that this issue becomes the issue of just the Support team to deal with. Rakhi then talks about how her company Oracle dealt with this issue by making it not just the support team’s issue but involving the Development team and the Product teams. When everyone looks into the issue, then while on the one hand there are a lot of ideas, on the hind side, the issue becomes difficult to solve as there is no direction. To solve this, one needs to follow a data-driven approach.

For a data-driven approach to work, one needs to capture the data so that one can derive meaning out of it. The first data point one can capture is through the users when they raise a service request. Users provide a lot of details like Setup UI, Reports, Flows and Web services. The second data point could be through the Support team when they fixed the support request. Support could give you information like Customization requests, Product enhancement, Product bug, Missing information. The third data point can be Analytics. Through analytics, one can derive the data as to a number of page views, audience report, Flow report, and the duration of a user on a page.

Identifying patterns:

Rakhi next shared her findings on Identifying patterns that will help reduce service requests.

Her findings were as follows:

• 30% of the service requests can be avoided by providing better user assistance.
• 11% of the service requests can be avoided with better search capabilities.

Another way of data collection was through the product area. The findings were as follows:

Informed Investment decisions:

It is not possible for any company to invest in all the problem areas, so it is very important to make informed investment decisions. The correct way of doing so is to find out the Return On Investment(ROI). Find the ROI of each area and determine where you want to invest.

Determine the Financial value for all focus areas to find out the ROI.

In real-life situations, one should calculate the ROI and apply constraints on it by prioritising.

A good way of prioritizing is calculating the RICE, i.e., Reach, Impact, Confidence and Efforts.

• Reach is the number of customers you think you will reach because of the new change.
• Impact is what kind of impact it will have, rating it out of 10.
• Effort is how many months will be required to make the change.
• Confidence is how much confidence you have in the above three factors.

The next step is to set measurable goals for any new change you want to implement after calculating the ROI and RICE. Setting the objective will provide a direction to the effort. For example, the objective of the session is to reduce service requests. According to the objective, set the key results. Here, the key results can fix all service request topics, identify the areas that need improvement, etc.

Techniques to reduce service requests:

• Keep the user journey in mind.
• Provide help in the early stages of the user journey.

• Product Improvements:

1. Simplify wizards and processes.
2. Provide buttons or links for error messages.
3. Add links to pre-requisite pages.
4. Tag UI and documentation of features that would be deprecated.

• Documentation enhancement techniques:

1. Create topics with user roles in mind.
2. Add topics that help make decisions.
3. Use tables, flowcharts and graphics.
4. Consolidate content.
5. Use a high-level snapshot.
6. Use clear actions and roles.
7. Have a coherent story.

• Messages and UI texts:

1. Provide cause and solution in the messages.
2. Avoid confusing messages.
3. Display a list of accepted values.

• Explain complex business Flows:

1. Create user assistance videos.
2. Work with product management to simplify business Flows.
3. Use Walkthroughs.

• Improve findability:

1. Optimize for search engines.
2. Customize the search experience on the help centre.
3. Display relevant documentation prominently.
4. Extend documentation reach.

• Keep documentation up-to-date:

1.  Monitor touchpoint.
2.  Update legacy documents.
3.  Track support articles.
4.  Monitor feedback mechanism and survey results.

SESSION 7: TECHNICAL COMMUNICATORS AND PRODUCT USABILITY 101 by Sangeeta Raghu

Topics of discussion: How can writers contribute to improving customer experience

       Prerequisites before a writer contribute to user experience:

                                    What is usability?

                                    Hierarchy of User needs in a product

                                    Evaluation

       Cheat Sheet

The session began with discussing how a writer can contribute towards making user experience with the product. The following are how a writer can contribute to better user experience:

• First users of the product.
• Closest representatives of the end-users in the organisations.
• A writer has the basic skills required.
• Contribute towards new directions in UX space, making it more intuitive with less documentation. We have to create better content now.
• Good UX: A good UX is the one that has a small learning curve and better adaptability. Writers can team up with the UX team and help.
• No tools or licences required.
• As writers, we don’t have to redesign the product but find usability issues.

Prerequisites before a writer contributes to user experience:

Technical skills:

• Product training.
• Training on how to identify usability issues

Behavioural skills:

• Communicate usability issues to the UXD and development teams.
• Improve influencing skills.

What is usability?

Usability is the ease of use of any user interface. The five quality components of usability are:

• Learnability
• Efficiency
• Memorability
• Errors
• Satisfaction

Hierarchy of user needs in a product: 

The foundation needs of user needs are as follows,

-The product should satisfy the function it is designed for.

-The product should be reliable. Every time I use the product, the results should be the same.

-The product should be usable, i.e., can be used easily.

-The product should be pleasurable to use.

Evaluation: How to identify the usability issues in a product?

Product usability has been evaluated over the years using heuristic metrics. Heuristics are the best practice used for years and now can be applied as the rule of thumb for a principle. Jacob Nielson of the Nielson group has defined ten heuristics:

• Visibility of system status: Communicate the system status with the user and provide appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.

• Match between system and the real world.: Speak the user’s language, follow the real-life conversation tone with real-life examples. Use the Skeuomorphic design.
• User control and freedom: Users need a marked emergency exit to correct their mistakes. 

-Basic user control: Undo, Redo

-Dialogue boxes: Edit, Back, Next, Reset

-Cancel/exit options should reset back to the previous page and do not apply changes.

• Consistency and standard: Use a consistent design and follow standard convention.

-Consistent design for all products ensures a reduced learning curve, familiarity ensures a sense of control.

-Ensure internal and external consistency. For example, the home sign refers to the home page, the gear sign refers to the settings page.

-Consistency in terminology across all the products.

• Error prevention: Prevent error with good design. A good design prevents slips and mistakes. For example, provide a default value, provide previews before actual changes, confirm before destructive actions.
• Recognition rather than recall: Show objects and actions in the user interface without expecting the user to remember the information.

-Show options required for users to complete a particular task.

-Provide cues in the user interface, for example, choice of menu, etc.

• Flexibility and efficiency of use: Use customizations and shortcuts for frequent actions in the user interface. 

-Accelerators: Alternate shortcuts to provide repetitive actions. For example, providing control+C and control+V to copy-paste in the application.

-Macros: Automate tasks

-Touch gestures: Long press or double-tap

-Customization: Advanced properties and preferred settings.

• Aesthetics and minimalist design: Show only relevant information.

-UI should follow minimalistic principles.

-Information mapping.

-Information hierarchy/UI formatting.

-Progressive disclosure of information.

• Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors: The error message should be simple, explaining all the problems and suggesting solutions. 

-Never blame the user.

-Mark the field where there is an error.

• Help and documentation: Create easy to use, intuitive applications.

The documentation should be easy to search, focusing on the user’s task and provide a list.

How to communicate usability issues with stakeholders:

-Let your work speak.

-Ask questions. Show interest in the product and deliverables.

-Always do your homework.

-Provide unbiased feedback.

-Understand their pain points.

Session 8: IN CONVERSATION WITH KRISTINA HALVORSON

Topics of discussion: Content strategy

The session began with the discussion of the difference between goal, strategy and tactics.

Goal is the end-state.

Strategy is the path chosen to achieve the goal.

Tactics are the way to achieve the goal.

Without a strategy, there is just the goal and tactics which are directionless and without any profit. The path is always essential to reach the goal.

Content strategy can be placed between content design and content systems, it fills in the gap between the two. Content design is a practice of creating user-centred content for digital products and services, informed by research and testing. The components of content strategy are:

Editorial: Who is your audience 

                What messages, stories and instructions are required.

  What is the point of view.

                What are the brand and language standards of the company.

                What is the voice and tone.

Experience: What does the user need

    What does our content ecosystem look like

    Understanding the customer journey.

    Understanding the format of the content.

    Understanding the design patterns.

    What metrics will we use to measure the performance.

Content system: Architectural components and activities that can be repeated and the processes that satisfy business requirements.

Structure: Organize content.

   Content categorisation.

   Structure of reuse.

Process: How will content move through the lifecycle.

 Tools used for organizing the content.

 How and when do we care about the content.

 Who gets to decide what content should be edited and updated.

What are some content problems that one faces?

Content problems always arise with people. Any content problem is a people problem. This happens because of a lack of roles and responsibilities assigned, territorial battles in an organisation, etc.   

To ensure no such issues occur, one should know what is happening in other teams; One should note that there is no limitation to what role one person is performing in a team; One should develop their skills before taking up a role.

Strategy is all about connecting with people and technology.

Suggested podcasts:

Content strategy insights podcast

Braintraffic podcast

UX writer collective

The relevance of content strategy

Session 9: UNCONSCIOUS BIAS V/S UX DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION IN UX by Wendy Ross

Topics of discussion: What is DEI, and why is it important?

       Serving the audience

       Example

       Resources

       STC and DEI

Diversity is the presence of differences within a given society.

Equity is the access to the same treatment, opportunity and advancement.

Inclusion is how people with different identities feel as a part of a large group.

Why is DEI important in an organisation?

Recruitment: Become the organisation of preference for potential recruits.

Customers: Develop products and services that the diverse customers can use.

Community: DO the right thing for the communities they serve, work in and recruit from.

Why is DEI important to Tech communicators and usability?

Technical communication and user assistance: Words and images matter. 

Software developers: Machine learning effects people.

Usability professionals: It is more about preference than the ability to do a task.

Social good writers: Create content to help others.

Know your audience:

We need to know our audience to create good content. Avoid stereotypes and understand where your audience is coming from.

How can bias block the success of Knowing your audience?

We all have unconscious bias, even while understanding our audience. We often have a certain attitude towards our audience. These biases can be positive and negative and involuntary. Implicit biases are the ones that affect our understanding, action and decision unconsciously.

Ability/Disability:

• 508 compliance for accessibility: This makes content accessible to differently-abled people.
• 80:20 rule: When initially designing something, it should meet the needs of 80% of the users.
• Universal design: A universal design of a product means taking 80% of the item and adding functionality to it so that you can add that remaining 20 % of the user.
• Microsoft Inclusive design: Microsoft has a specifically inclusive design. They have identified that sometimes you need a product that is different, and they have created adaptive content.

Examples of bias-free terminologies:

• Avoid using pronouns like he/she.
• Avoid using male and female, instead, use man and woman.
• Avoid using senior citizens when referring to older people.
• Avoid using the term disabled, instead, use person with a disability.
• Avoid saying wheelchair-bound person, instead, address them as wheelchair users.
• Avoid using the terms master and slave.

Terms of identities:

• People of colour: Used primarily in the US to refer to anyone who isn’t white.
• Black/White: When using these terms, use capital initials.
• LGBTQIA+: Use proper term for gender orientation.

Session on SALARY SURVEY by Paresh Naik

The few questions that were dealt with in the session were:

• What was the impact of COVID 19 on the salary?
• How much does a person's experience impact the salary?
• Does a person's location impact his salary?
• Is there a difference in the salary based on the nature of the company?
• Does salary changes with the job role?
• How does performance rating impact the salary?
• Does API documentation impact the salary?
• What is the effect of the Writer: Engineer ratio on the salary?
•  Does the Industry segment impact the salary?
• How does the team structure contribute to a person's salary?
• Does the salary vary with the company size?
• How much does freelancing impact the pay?
• How satisfaction are employees with their salary?
• How has the salary graph altered for the year 2020?

Responses taken: 466

Questions asked: 14

Here's what the findings of the survey were: Salary Survey by Paresh Naik