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Open the Door: Inviting Users to Contribute to the Online HelpJosh Breault, Senior Content EngineerPatty Gale, Principal Learning Content Developer
STC New England November 19, 2014
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The Challenge
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Help content over the wall once a year
Learning ContentDevelopmentteam
Who is over here? Anyone?
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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…
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User Research Showed…
but users can’t find it,
so they turn tosearch and social media.
We providehigh quality content
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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 fromour products,
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How can we go from this…
…to this?
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The Vision
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Our users recognize that learning is a social activity.
They instinctively turn to one another for help.
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So let’s make our help system the place where it can happen.
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How will it work?
Users can access it using:• in-product
help links• an Internet
search…
We publish our help to the wiki.
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…or navigate workflows or the contents pane.
START
1 2
3 4
5 6
END
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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…
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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
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User content will be…
moderated harvestedand
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Reduce duplicated content
Round-tripping Smarter Search
Behind the scenes…
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The Process
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So what did we do to get here?
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In-product Search
Context-sensitive HelpCMS to Wiki
Content Engineering
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Information Architecture
We started to shift from a book paradigm to a topic-based paradigm.
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Content StrategyFor 3 parallel products with different audiences but largely redundant content, we moved to a single help system with unique content marked for each product.
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Moderation1st-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
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Seeding Community Content
Autodesk content User content
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The Result
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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)
50/50Can 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!
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The landing page
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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
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Search
Filter by version
Filter by type or source
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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:
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A help topic
Would anyone• Comment?• Add pages? • Edit pages? • Upload videos?
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User comments
A user added a comment
A user edited a topic
A user created a topic, added a videoP
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User contributionsAnd then… User
creates a topic, asking for help
Another user responds with suggestions.
COMMUNITY happened!
A third user responds with more help.
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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…
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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…
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AnalyticsMetric 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.
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Lessons Learned
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Not scalableVery successful
When we implemented our solution…
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Overly complex Not contribution friendly
When we implemented our solution…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Moving Forward
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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
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New help framework: landing page
Table of contents
Search
Essential skills videos
Quick links to other resources
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New help framework: a topic User sign in
Language
Ask questions, leave comments
Feedback
Socialmedia
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New help framework: a topicUser 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.
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New help framework: searchEnter a search term
Choose source/category
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Our help content can also be accessed through our customer knowledge portal
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Our help content can also be accessed through our customer knowledge portal
Content from a user group classContent from supportContent from online help
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User commenting and feedback Moderation by writers for English Targeted search Videos available, and embedded in help topics
We carried forward…
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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…
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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…
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Attributions for images used in this presentationIcons 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
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Questions?
Josh BreaultContent [email protected]: @joshuabreaultLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabreault
Patty GaleLearning Content [email protected]: @tkrytrLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/patty-gale/1/446/977
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© 2014 Autodesk. All rights reserved.