This document discusses improving the workflow and notification system for a documentation platform. It notes that the current system has poor out-of-the-box workflows and no notification mechanism. The social nature of content creation requires users to be aware of changes that may impact them. The document then proposes deep diving into a notification system to make object transitions and user activity more transparent across the multiple user interfaces and roles. Open questions remain about how notifications will initially be offered and how the interaction model could work for other products.

1. SDL Proprietary and Confidential
Workflows
and Notifications
Building a case for a transparent
Documentation system
João Lopes – UX Strategy Group

2. LiveContent in one sentence
A suite of tools to create, reuse, review, publish and
translate documentation to multiple outputs in multiple
languages.

3. Multiple UIs on the way
Desktop
We
b

4. Content creation processes

5. Personas involved

6. Personas involved

7. Workflows are hardly used
○ Kind of hidden
○ OOB, one single workflow with
fixed states
○ No Ad-hoc designer
○ Cannot handle exceptions
○ No support for User Groups as
assignees
○ No easy-maintenance

8. ○ Multiplicity of users and roles involved
○ Impact of the intrinsic objects relation (reuses, referenced,
anchored)
○ Poor workflows OOB
○ Inexistent warnings or notifications mechanism
○ Multiple UIs
○ Legacy and non-compatible technologies across UIs
Recap of the facts

9. ○ System does not help users preventing their actions impact
their peers
○ A lot of time is wasted in understanding impact a priori and
a posteriori and guaranteeing that the process flows
smoothly
○ Need to use of external / third party tools to communicate or
flag changes (email, doc review tool)
○ Doesn’t resonate with the ‘Team’ concept behind a
‘Publication’
○ Provides no tracing ability
And consequences

10. 10
Content creation pipeline has an intrinsic social nature
that LiveContent is not respecting.
Users need to be aware of everything that may concern
them happening in the creation pipeline, hence the need to
make objects’ transitions and people activity transparent.
Axiom - UX PrincipleAxiom – UX Principle

11. 11
A bit of Storytelling

22. 22
Deep-dive into Notifications

23. OWNSERSHIP
a change to a
topic I own
a new version of a
topic I own
a new version of a
publication I own
A change to a
topic I’m reusing
a topic I own is
added to a
Publication
COMMENT
someone accepts
a comment I’ve
made
someone replies
to a comment I've
made
comment activity
in a topic I own
PUBLISH
Status of my
publishing job
RELEASE
Publications with
content I own are
released
Publication where
I have a role are
released
WORKFLOW
a new To-do is
assigned to me
derived from my
role in a workflow
work items I’m
assigned to
overdue or are
nearly overdue
workflow roles in a
Publication I
contribute/own
change
TRANSLATION
JOB
my translation
jobs status
Events that can trigger a Notification

24. Where to show Notifications
WEB UI - Notifications area SDL frame
Email
Mobile device

25. Anatomy of a Notification
○ User / Actor Image
○ Icon of notification trigger / group /
product
○ Timestamp
○ Notification description (two lines)
○ Hyperlink to object (when applicable)
○ Secondary action button (when
applicable)
○ (on hover) Notification details button
○ 'New' visual hint * (colored
background)
*what's does 'New' mean?
New is a notification that has not been read yet.

26. Notification details
○ Full notification description
○ Possible additional actions
○ User Recent Activity (stress the
social nature of users' activity)

27. How actionable are Notifications
PRIMARY ACTION: JUMP TO OBJECT
○ Except for explicit buttons, clicking a
Notification navigates to its object, either
from web UI or email.
– Topic
– Publication
– Comment
– Properties (Metadata)
SECUNDARY ACTION
○ Secondary actions add a logical action in
context of the Notification. Example are:
– Mark as done
– Locate in Repository
– View a report
– Download a Publishing job

28. ○ While triggers for Notifications are on each product court, Notifications
as part of SDL frame navigation should be handled as a common
capability.
○ Initial concept was to have Tasks AND Notifications and it evolved to a
simpler format where Notifications can trigger Tasks (To do’s).
○ It’s still undefined if LiveContent will offer Notifications in this release
(Sept 2015 and possibly email only) or next year.
○ How does this interaction model works for other SDL products?
Open questions

29. Thank You!
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