LavaCon Las Vegas 2016 Presentation

1. FROM ENGINEERS TO END
USERS & BACK AGAIN:
Using two-way collaboration to create effective
document strategies

2. NATHAN ROBERT BROWN
US Marine from 1996 – 2001
MA in English/Mythology from MSU
12 years as professional author
 14 published titles to date
4 years as Tech Writer for Satellite Antenna firm
in TX
2+ years as Tech Writer in Health IT at Nextech
Systems in FL

3. THE PROCESS
1. Assess the Current Situation
 How do engs/devs/staff members view end users? Are any of these views
negative?
2. Pin Down the Big Problems
 What are users doing/not doing to cause negative views?
 Are users ignoring information? How is that info being presented?
3. ID the Communication Breakdown(s)
 Interview end users (face-to-face, preferably) & RECORD what they tell you
4. Create Solutions/Changes: Implement, Test, Record
 What could/can be done to improve user reception of info?
 What is the desired result from these changes? (decreased support calls,
increased sales, improved user behaviors, etc.)
 How will you record results? (Analytics, Hubspot, Salesforce, etc.)
5. Keep what works. Cut what doesn’t work. (Some things won’t work and
that is okay)

4. THE SITUATION: “OUR END USERS MUST BE STUPID”
Initial weeks in Sat. Ant. industry = Total Chaos
Users regularly damaging/destroying their own MILLION
DOLLAR equipment
Some users were even injuring themselves
Safety/Danger warnings being widely ignored
 WARNING: Never disable antenna hard limits
 DANGER: Never stand inside or in front of antenna aperture
while in operation
General opinion of engineers: “Our end users must be
stupid”

5. THE BIG PROBLEMS
The Crushed Dishes
 Southern Hemisphere = flipped compass
 Reboot = reset compass
 Disabled hard limits = antenna becomes a million dollar
paperweight
The Soldiers Who “Felt the Burn”
 Several had jumped into dish to “Make quick tweaks”
 Fried by radiation
 Why did they ignore the warning (posted ON THE ANTENNA
DISH)? “The warnings didn’t say it could HURT me.”

6. THE COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWNS
Our Engineers = highly intelligent & well educated in their
field
Installers/Technicians = Skilled laborers, with licenses or
certifications in their fields, who are aware of dangers, etc.
End Users = for the most part, 19-22 year old soldiers with
high school diploma or GED and/or (in some cases)
uneducated/unskilled “attendants.”
To add to the problem, for a decade, all Tech Writers had
been temps who simply wrote what the engineers told
them with little to no user input.
Supervisor gave me free reign to interview users and find
solutions

7. THE SOLUTIONS
All warnings followed up with result statements.
 “Does this tell the user WHY/WHY NOT to do something?”
Created two separate manual sets:
 Advanced Technical Manuals
 For licensed/certified installers & technicians ONLY
 Basic User Manuals
 For everyone else
RESULTS:
 User-caused damages dropped by 50% in one year
 Tech Support calls/emails dropped off 35% in one year
(which made our ONLY tech support guy very happy)

8. SITUATION: “OUR USERS DON’T CARE ABOUT UPDATES”
Falling in Love with Dentist = Shift to Health IT in FL
PRNs & Product Promo Materials become my primary job
In “triage mode” for months because they hadn’t kept a
Tech Writer on staff in about 17 years
General software dev opinion: “Our users don’t care
about new updates. The don’t want to spend more
money on new features and just want what they already
have.”

9. THE BIG PROBLEMS
Despite MAJOR new release with tons of new bells &
whistles, only new clients were purchasing it (by default)
Current clients seemed uninterested, despite being sent
TONS of “newsletter” emails
And there was that whole ICD-10 thing (don’t worry, I’ll
explain it)

10. THE COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWNS
 Development didn’t talk to Product Management (PM). PM
didn’t talk to Sales, or Sales to Implementation. (long story
short, there was no interdepartmental communication)
 Fighting to go to the EDGE
 A.K.A. “Nathan pays to stay in a hotel that looks like a jock’s fever
dream so he can attend a user conference hosted by his own
employer.”
 Most common dialogue:
 User: “Why don’t you guys have an ICD-10 solution?”
 Me: “We do. It’s in the new update.”
 User: “There’s a new update?”
 No one seemed to be reading our emails
 Then I had to tell my boss (CTO)

11. THE SOLUTIONS
Update alerts show up IN the software
“Highlights” section added to release notes
Cloud hosting with automatic upgrades available
Publishing Blog articles about new features (more users
were reading Blog than emails)
 Also, our blog readership jumped by 900+% (I’m not kidding)
RESULTS:
 Sales of new releases to existing clients jumped 15% in three
months
 New release sales to existing clients increased 25% in one
year

12. QUESTIONS?