The document discusses strategies for developing customer-centric content. It recommends performing user research such as surveys, interviews and usability tests to develop personas representing key user groups. User stories are then created based on the personas to outline tasks and goals. Content strategies should be tailored to specific use cases and ensure content is task-focused, personalized and available across channels. Iterative testing and evolution is important as customer needs change over time.

2. PROBLEM

3. TEXTURE OF THE NEW WORLD
• How does one reach and engage a
customer in this new world?
• Omni-channel world
• Multi-device engagement
• Fragmented Information
• Social driven
• Ubiquitous customer to customer
communication
• Disintermediation of the company
between customers
• Fragmented / silos of information
• Visual driven knowledge
• Democratized
3

4. AGE OF THE CUSTOMER

5. THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Continuing the Engagement
Purchase
Decision
Investigating
Options
Determining
Needs
Initial Interest
1st Out-of-the-Box
Experience
Getting Started
In-depth
Tutorials
Advanced
Learning
5

6. THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Keeping Customers Satisfied
Brand
Advocate
Initial
Problem
Searching
Resources
Recognized
Fan
Determining
Solution
Consistent
Praise
Initial
Endorsement
Resolution
6

7. INFORMAL AUDIENCE POLL
Level of Experience working with product content
1) Experienced, have executed on several projects
2) Working on my second or third project, have knowledge to share
3) My first project, working in the details now
4) I’m interested in learning from others, here to learn

8. OUTSIDE IN - KNOW THY CUSTOMERS
User Research & Analysis
Personas
User Stories
Strategy
Implementation
Iteration and Evolution – The Future

9. USER RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Surveys
Prototyping
Observations
Customer
Communities
Interviews
Usability Tests
Contextual
Interviews

10. PERSONAS
Personas are representations of real users created to emphasize and
personalize limitations, goals, and behavior patterns of your target
audience.
Benefits
•
Understand customer needs and interests
•
Knowledge of where customers spend time
•
Consistency across the business
•
Better user assistance to suit your customers’ needs
Note: We do these by solution.

11. PUT IT TOGETHER
Customer Research + Personas = User Stories

12. USER STORIES
Front of Card
•
Story Name
•
Story Short Description
•
As “persona name”, I want to “something” so that “benefit”.
•
Task to Complete
Back of Card
•
Acceptance Criteria (Short Name)
•
Given “context”, when “event 1”, “event 2”, “event 3”, then “outcome 1”,
“outcome 2”, etc.

13. USE CASE 1 – WHAT’S YOUR STRATEGY?
• Form-heavy software that contains industry-specific terminology
that varies slightly by company
• User stories defined what specific personas were trying to
accomplish and their success criteria
• Persona facts
• Locked in a bank wire room with others doing the same job
• No Internet or mobile phone access
• Access to specific software features (not all software features)

14. OUR STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION
Strategy
•
Write embedded content on the user interface
•
Create a tasked-based help system that focuses on the key processes by
persona
•
Include a glossary of terms and related terms in the help system
Implementation
•
Resource files for UI content
•
DITA XML for help content
•
Help segregated by persona and their tasks for security reasons
•
Help can be customized by customer - mix and match map files

15. USE CASE 2 – WHAT’S YOUR STRATEGY?
• Web-based software that contains industry-specific terminology
that must be understood by people with bank accounts
• User stories defined what personas were trying to accomplish
and their success criteria
• Persona facts
• Teachers who manage their personal bank accounts online
• Have Internet access
• Access to all online banking features

16. OUR STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION
Strategy
• Write embedded content on the user interface
• Create tasked-based show-me videos
• For key processes by the persona
• No audio and 3mins max
• Create small help system with task-based instructions for key processes
• Include a FAQs and glossary of terms in help system
Implementation
• Resource files for UI content
• DITA XML for help content
• Web-based help system with DITA as the source
Thought about – Not calling it help, adding an interactive component

17. USE CASE 3 – WHAT’S YOUR STRATEGY?
•
•
•
Enterprise Web-based software for transferring money between
banks
User stories defined what personas were trying to accomplish and
their success criteria
Persona facts
• One persona monitors data-heavy reports for errors and
inconsistent transfer patterns and flags errors as suspicious
• Another persona receives reports and researches transfer to
determine whether it’s fraudulent
• Internet access is very limited for both personas because of privacy
issues

18. OUR STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION
Strategy
•
Write embedded content on the user interface
•
Create small help system with task-based instructions for key processes
•
Include conceptual information on how to read reports
•
Include a FAQs and glossary of terms in help system
Implementation
•
Resource files for UI content
•
DITA XML for help content
•
Web-based help system with DITA as the source
Lack of Internet limits our implementation

19. WHAT ABOUT TEAM PROBLEMS?
•
•
•
•
•
What if your team isn’t ready for customer
engagement?
Where do you start?
How do you plan?
How do you educate?
How do you uplift content?
Governance is key

20. STRATEGY USE CASE 4 – WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?
• Distributed writing teams spanning multiple countries/time
zones
• Varying levels of business, customer, and technical
communications knowledge
• Inconsistent processes, styles, and metadata across teams

21. OUR IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation
•
Hire a leader to fuse/mold the teams together
•
Purchase a common toolset that enables collaboration, provides style
enforcement, includes a publishing engine, and provides feedback mechanisms
•
Select site mavens to configure the toolset and train their teams
•
Form two small teams and empower them to make process and style decisions
•
Plan the content conversion – schedule it out – serious schedule with quarterly
goals
Note
•
Metadata required enforced and required by CCMS
•
Most important styles enforced by CCMS

22. STRATEGY USE CASE 5 – WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?
• Multiple product releases (service pack + major) going
simultaneously
• Service pack content comes first, but must move into the major
release content
• Service pack content release is prior to the major release
• Team Scenario
• Worldwide distributed writing team working on the service pack
release and the major release
• More than one writer working on the same content

23. OUR IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation
•
Baseline content is from the previous major release
•
Service pack - Version the content for the service pack release for the writers
•
Major release – Writers create new versions of topics only when they update
them. They create new topics as needed. Version the map file as needed.
•
Major release – Service pack information is moved into major release.
Comparing topics is required in some instances.
Notes
•
CCMS controls versions, locks files when in use, let’s multiple writers work on
the same content
•
Outputs vary by product line

24. STRATEGY USE CASE 6 – CASE FOR A
CCMS
• Collaboration, working with a team
• Authoring
• Status, communication, notifications
• Content versioning and branching
• Customized metadata options
• maps, topics, libraries and images
• i.e. product name, module, release date, and version
• Content reuse
• Automation
• Translation management

25. TOPIC REUSE BY PRODUCT AND
FEATURE
How To Print
Paper Jams
Blue Tooth
Ink Cartridges

26. CONTEXTUALIZATION BY USE CASE
Tablet User
Advanced
User
Dynamic Content
PC User
Beginning
User

27. PARADIGM OF TOPICS AND DYNAMIC PUBLISHING
Authoring
A1
B1
C1 D1
B1
Master
Document
Heirarchy
Topics
C2
Delivery
Products
Customer Profiles
A
A
A
A
1
1
1
1
B
B
B
B
2
2
2
2
C
C
C
C
3
3
3
3
D
D
D
D
4
4
4
4
XML
PDF
DOC
HTML

28. OUTSIDE IN - KNOW THY CUSTOMERS
User research & analysis
Personas
User stories
Strategy
Implementation
Iteration and evolution – the future

29. ITERATION AND EVOLUTION - FUTURE
What personas
do you serve?
What is the
rate of change
for you?
Repeat the
strategy
process as user
scenarios
evolve/change
Think Outside of the BOX
Don’t just do something because it’s what you’ve always done

30. RESOURCES
Personas
UX Magazine - http://uxmag.com/articles/personas-the-foundation-of-a-great-userexperience
Interaction Design Org - http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/personas.html
User Stories
Mountain Goat Software - http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/user-stories
Scrum Alliance https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/september/agile-userstories
Code Squeeze - http://codesqueeze.com/the-easy-way-to-writing-good-user-stories/