In an effort to engage users, Autodesk launched an online learning experience called WikiHelp that enabled community content, collaboration, and, most importantly, regular communication with our users. Join Senior Content Engineer Josh Breault and Principal Learning Content Developer Patty Gale for a presentation on the challenges, lessons learned, and key takeaways from their experiences in developing help for and with the user community.

1. © 2014 Autodesk
Slide 1
Open the Door: Inviting Users to Contribute
to the Online Help
Josh Breault, Senior Content Engineer
Patty Gale, Principal Learning Content Developer
STC New England November 19, 2014

2. © 2014 Autodesk
Slide 2
The Challenge
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Help content
over the wall
once a year
Learning
Content
Development
team
Who is
over
here?
Anyone?
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4. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 4
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 to
search and social media.
We provide
high 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 from
our products,
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How can we go from this…
…to this?
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Slide 8
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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14. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 14
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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Slide 17
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 Strategy
For 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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Moderation
1st-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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Slide 24
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)
50/50
Can 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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26. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 26
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 video
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User contributions
And 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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33. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 33
 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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35. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 35
Analytics
Metric 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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Slide 36
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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40. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 40
 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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41. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 41
 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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42. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 42
 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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43. © 2014 Autodesk
Slide 43
Moving Forward
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44. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 44
 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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45. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 45
New help framework: landing page
Table of
contents
Search
Essential
skills
videos
Quick links
to other
resources
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46. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 46
New help framework: a topic User sign in
Language
Ask questions,
leave comments
Feedback
Social
media
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New help framework: a topic
User 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: search
Enter 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 class
Content from
support
Content 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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54. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 54
Attributions for images used in this presentation
Icons 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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55. © 2014 Autodesk Slide 55
Questions?
Josh Breault
Content Engineer
joshua.breault@autodesk.com
Twitter: @joshuabreault
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabreault
Patty Gale
Learning Content Developer
patricia.gale@autodesk.com
Twitter: @tkrytr
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub
/patty-gale/1/446/977
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56. Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to
their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or
graphical errors that may appear in this document.
© 2014 Autodesk. All rights reserved.