Why What How Information Experience - Brenda Horowitz

1. WHY
WHAT
HOW
The of Information Experience
Brenda Horowitz
Bringing Content Development and
User Experience Together
October 23, 2014

2. © 2014 Citrix. 2 Confidential.
WHY are you in this session?
WHAT do you want to know?
HOW can I help you?

3. WHY create this content?
WHAT are our goals?
HOW is work organized?
© 2014 Citrix. 3 Confidential.

4. Tech Pubs
= Good
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15
50
21 million

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Do the best you can
until you know better.
Then when you know better,
do better.
“”
Maya Angelou

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WHY change our approach?
WHAT role should we play?
HOW do we impact the user
experience?

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The most exciting thing
I heard you guys talk about
was Experience.
It’s something that’s incredibly hard to do.
But when you do it right,
you end up with Walt Disney World.
People pay for that experience dearly,
and they do it happily.
“”
IT Director
Construction Industry

8. WHY?
Design-led
companies
outperformed
the S&P 500 by
Source - dmi: design management institute
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228%

9. WHAT?
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Empathize
Define
Prototype Ideate
Test
Design Thinking

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11. Customer Journey
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WHY do customers consider us?
WHAT problems are they trying
to solve?
HOW do they become aware of
our solutions? Learn more?
Try us? Buy us?

13. WHY are some customers
happy, but others not?
WHAT are we doing right?
HOW could we do better?
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WHY should we create
content?
WHAT should our goals
be?
HOW should we be
organized?

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Embrace whatever role is necessary
“” Kristina Halvorson
Content Strategy for the Web
HOW?
to deliver on the promise
of useful, useable content.

16. Information
Experience
= Better!
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15

17. More than
just manuals
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labels
organization
in-field examples
descriptive text
tool tips

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Give people
what they want
terminology

19. Catch-Cook-Plate
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Customer
enjoys!
SME authors Ix professionalizes

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Video Prototype
Testing
authoritative minimalistic whimsical

21. Video Prototype
Results
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22. Technical
Publications è Information
Experience
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23. Design
- Someone else’s job
- Aesthetically appealing
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- An integral part of
everyone’s job
- Decisions focused on
achieving the desired
Experience

24. Content Strategy
- Feature-driven
- Technical documentation
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- Experience-driven
- Information flow &
consistency across
Customer Journey

25. Deliverables
- Mostly external docs
- Almost exclusively
word-based
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- Help customers use
product without switching
context
- Support different
learning styles

26. Job Description
- Read
- Talk
- Write
- Illustrate
- Edit
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- Empathize
- Define
- Ideate
- Prototype (Curate/Author)
- Test

27. Reporting Structure
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Eng
Dev Prod Ops
… LifeCycle
Mgmt
Tech Pubs
…
…
Cx
Insights/
Enablement
Ix
…
Product Design Corp Mkt

28. Feedback
- Generally negative, so
avoid it
- Passively wait for
customer to report issues
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- Seek out opportunities
to improve
- Actively solicit input on
current product and
proposed designs

29. Now it’s YOUR turn!
Just ask yourself:
© 2014 Citrix. 29 Confidential.
WHY?
WHAT?
HOW?

30. © 2014 Citrix. 30 Confidential.
WORK BETTER. LIVE BETTER.
brenda.horowitz@citrix.com