Open the Door: Inviting Users to Contribute to the Online Help
- 1. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 1 Open the Door: Inviting Users to Contribute to the Online Help Josh Breault, Senior Content Engineer Patty Gale, Principal Learning Content Developer STC New England November 19, 2014
- 2. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 2 The Challenge P
- 3. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 3 Help content over the wall once a year Learning Content Development team Who is over here? Anyone? P
- 4. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 4 Who is on the other side of the wall? How many are there? Does anyone use the help? How do they locate the help? (in-product v. search) Can they find the information they need? Is the information they find helpful? Do they have questions? Suggestions? Examples to share? Questions… P
- 5. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 5 User Research Showed… but users can’t find it, so they turn to search and social media. We provide high quality content P
- 6. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 6 User Research Showed… and this content is of variable quality, with no way to qualify it. Lots of user- created knowledge exists but users can’t get to it from our products, P
- 7. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 7 How can we go from this… …to this? P
- 8. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 8 The Vision J
- 9. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 9 Our users recognize that learning is a social activity. They instinctively turn to one another for help. J
- 10. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 10 So let’s make our help system the place where it can happen. J
- 11. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 11 How will it work? Users can access it using: • in-product help links • an Internet search… We publish our help to the wiki. J
- 12. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 12 …or navigate workflows or the contents pane. START 1 2 3 4 5 6 END J
- 13. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 13 Users can comment on wiki content. Here’s a tip when using this feature… A large office may use it as described here, but in our small shop, we do it this way… We also use this tool as follows… J
- 14. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 14 Users can add wiki content, too. Here’s how I use this tool to maximize productivity: Videos Alternative Workflow: 1. Import a CAD drawing. 2. Use it as an underlay. 3. Sketch new lines on top. Text Here’s an example of what you can do with this tool. Images J
- 15. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 15 User content will be… moderated harvestedand J
- 16. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 16 Reduce duplicated content Round-tripping Smarter Search Behind the scenes… J
- 17. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 17 The Process J
- 18. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 18 So what did we do to get here? J
- 19. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 19 In-product Search Context-sensitive HelpCMS to Wiki Content Engineering J
- 20. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 20 Information Architecture We started to shift from a book paradigm to a topic-based paradigm. P
- 21. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 21 Content Strategy For 3 parallel products with different audiences but largely redundant content, we moved to a single help system with unique content marked for each product. P
- 22. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 22 Moderation 1st-level moderation by a 3rd party: to identify spam, bad language, etc. 2nd-level moderation: • English: The writing team • Other languages: internal resources, some external power users Prep and support for moderators: • Guidelines • Training • Standard responses for common issues • Support meetings for international moderators Languages with low usage volumes or small user communities: Disabled commenting/editing P
- 23. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 23 Seeding Community Content Autodesk content User content P
- 24. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 24 The Result P
- 25. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 25 Who is on the other side of the wall? How many are there? Lots! Does anyone use the help? Yes! How do they locate the help? (in-product v. search) 50/50 Can they find the information they need? Yes and No Is the information they find helpful? Yes and No Do they have questions? Suggestions? Examples to share? Definitely yes! Answers! P
- 26. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 26 The landing page P
- 27. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 27 The landing page The result: • Users can browse Autodesk help or community content • Users can see what has been updated/added recently • Writers can see what users are interested in P
- 28. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 28 Search Filter by version Filter by type or source P
- 29. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 29 Search • Users can search Autodesk help and community content • Users can filter to target the search for: • versions • sources: forums, videos, blogs, etc. • Users and writers can add tags to improve search results The result: P
- 30. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 30 A help topic Would anyone • Comment? • Add pages? • Edit pages? • Upload videos? P
- 31. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 31 User comments A user added a comment A user edited a topic A user created a topic, added a video P
- 32. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 32 User contributions And then… User creates a topic, asking for help Another user responds with suggestions. COMMUNITY happened! A third user responds with more help. P
- 33. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 33 Access multiple sources from one location Ask questions Get answers from us and from each other Edit our topics to make corrections or add more details Add their own content/examples Feel listened to, included in the process Contribute to improving the quality of the help The wiki allowed our users to… J
- 34. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 34 Have daily conversations with our users Understand their pain points and needs Quickly respond to identified issues Update help topics on the spot Change information architecture to address needs Give users a place to connect, promote their blogs and other related content, help each other Analyze patterns to identify troublesome content that needs an overhaul The wiki allowed the writing team to… J
- 35. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 35 Analytics Metric FY13 Target FY12 Actual Y/Y Growth % Target FY13 Actual Y/Y Growth % Actual Status Total Pageviews 8,000,000 6,638,412 20.5% 12,824,709* 93% Exceeded Customer contributions 850 767 10.8% increase 1,117 45% Exceeded Organic search traffic At least 50% of traffic from organic search results 65% 0% (maintain) 73% = 9,323,061 Met Google Search ranking 1 or 2 Google search rank for top search terms Met 0% (maintain) Met Met Video pageviews 150,000 103,837 44% increase 528,417 409% Exceeded * Represents total pageviews for all versions, all languages. J
- 36. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 36 Lessons Learned J
- 37. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 37 Not scalableVery successful When we implemented our solution… J
- 38. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 38 Overly complex Not contribution friendly When we implemented our solution… J
- 39. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 39 Some users thought we expected them to write all the help. Many users didn’t understand the moderation process, and that all changes to content were vetted by Autodesk >> confusion, mistrust When we invited users to contribute… P
- 40. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 40 Some users thought we expected them to write all the help. Many users didn’t understand the moderation process, and that all changes to content were vetted by Autodesk >> confusion, mistrust When we invited users to contribute… P
- 41. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 41 Many users want to ask questions and get clarification. Folks are happy to point out errors/omissions in the help. Less than 1% of users add their own content to the help. When we invited users to contribute… P
- 42. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 42 Many users want to ask questions and get clarification. Folks are happy to point out errors/omissions in the help. Less than 1% of users add their own content to the help. When we invited users to contribute… P
- 43. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 43 Moving Forward PP
- 44. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 44 Autodesk has developed its own online help framework. We carried forward the best, most valuable parts of WikiHelp. We learned from those lessons. Now we’ve moved on P
- 45. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 45 New help framework: landing page Table of contents Search Essential skills videos Quick links to other resources P
- 46. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 46 New help framework: a topic User sign in Language Ask questions, leave comments Feedback Social media P
- 47. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 47 New help framework: a topic User left comment here User is looking for this topic Based on this question, I edited the Adding topic to include a link to the Deleting topic. P
- 48. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 48 New help framework: search Enter a search term Choose source/ category P
- 49. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 49 Our help content can also be accessed through our customer knowledge portal J
- 50. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 50 Our help content can also be accessed through our customer knowledge portal Content from a user group class Content from support Content from online help J
- 51. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 51 User commenting and feedback Moderation by writers for English Targeted search Videos available, and embedded in help topics We carried forward… J
- 52. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 52 Ability to update help pages easily, publishing updates on a regular basis Ability to pull content from many sources, including help, support, and forums. Analytics Beta help We carried forward… J
- 53. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 53 Ability for users to add/edit help topics Moderation for other languages Wiki-based transclusion (but we still use conrefs) Topic versions and history on the platform Ability to move pages in the info architecture Legal Disclaimer >> Creative Commons We left behind… J
- 54. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 54 Attributions for images used in this presentation Icons from The Noun Project (www.thenounproject.com) • Monitor by useiconic.com • Ribbon by hunotika • Lost by Luis Prado • Search by Norbert Kucsera • Chat Room by Mister Pixel • Components by Q. Li • Poor Quality by Bridget Gahagan • Social profile, website, browser, page, social by Max Miner • Add by Alexander Smith • No Spam icon by Brennan Novak Others: • NO icon: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License • Digitizing by Peter Schwartz • Search by Gianni • Copy by Cornelius Danger • Oppression by Luis Prado • Network by Mister Pixel • Chart by Wilson Joseph • Maze by Anna Wingard • Scale by Paul Davis • Achieve by Juan Garces • Question by Anas Ramadan J
- 55. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 55 Questions? Josh Breault Content Engineer joshua.breault@autodesk.com Twitter: @joshuabreault LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabreault Patty Gale Learning Content Developer patricia.gale@autodesk.com Twitter: @tkrytr LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub /patty-gale/1/446/977 J
- 56. Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2014 Autodesk. All rights reserved.