The document discusses opportunities for technical writers and designers at Atlassian to work more collaboratively by applying user experience design principles and techniques to documentation. It provides examples of how designers' research into users and analytics can inform documentation, and explores workshops and exercises the teams can do together like empathy mapping, user stories, and sparring sessions to critique drafts and provide feedback. The goal is to evaluate documentation through a user-centered lens and ensure it meets users' needs.

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2. Pairing with Designers
to create a seamless
user experience
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3. Intro
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4. • Atlassian has a very strong Design team
• Traditionally, tech writing has played a very traditional
role
• There was opportunity to work together, as these
teams have the same basic goals
Some background
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5. Bringing UX to docs
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6. Atlassian design principles
• A few of our design
principles:
• Be familiar
• Grow with me
• Give me clarity
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7. • Almost any UX principle you encounter can be
applied to documentation
• Android
• Mac OSX
• Facebook
• Designers are great at working toward UX principles,
so they can be helpful in evaluating how well a
document meets them too
Looking at the docs as part of
UX
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8. • What role is a feature
targeting?
• What is assumed skills/
background, etc.
• How do we best reach a certain
type of user?
• What are their preferences?
Their fears?
Audience/Persona
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9. Data and measures
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10. • Realization! Designers have access to lots of customer
information!
• Customer interviews & site visits
• Usability tests
• Usage information on existing features
• Long-term roadmap
Leveraging siloed data
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11. • Piggybacking usability
testing
• Do we need documentation?
• If so, what are the FAQs?
• Piggybacking analytics
results
Measuring success
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12. Borrowing design
techniques
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13. • Empathy maps help bring focus
on the user
• Use them to workshop how a
user might feel in a “before and
after” situation
• Work backward from the “after”
situation
Workshopping: Empathy maps
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14. • Great for moving ideas
around
• Great for separate ->
collaborative
brainstorming
• Cheap, mobile, fun
Invest in Post-its
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15. • Basically a critique session
• Brings group thinking into design
and planning
• A check that the goals have been
met with the prototype
Workshopping: Sparring
sessions
Goals of sparring sessions:
To assure design quality by
critiquing design early and often
To drive towards outcomes/
decisions quickly
To keep each other in the loop
and learn from each others
approaches and products
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16. • Prior, a TW sends out:
• The draft to discuss
• A list that covers the
goals of the document
Sparring with TWs
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17. • Timebox, timebox, timebox!
• If your team is given to negativity, try a positives-only 5
minutes
• Try to make sure everyone is heard - using a checklist
or give everyone 1 minute to list feedback
• Leave with at least 3 action items
Tips for running a sparring session
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18. • 6-ups drive focus on ideal
solutions
• Get you out of “word-thinking”
• Good way to build on each
others’ ideas
Workshopping: 6-ups
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19. • How does a user get to a
feature?
• Controlled process?
• From many different areas with
different goals?
• What does a user do before?
• What does a user usually do
next?
Workshopping: User stories
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20. • Use colored stickers to
“vote”
• Build out your doco plan
based on the problem areas
Taking user stories to the next level
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21. How we made this
happen
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22. • Look for a team that finds value in
Design and Tech Writing
• Look for a Designer who sees the
value in docs
• Look for a new project that’s running
lean and has some momentum
• Look for projects that are data-driven
Find the right projects
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23. • Check out some design
principles
• Read about design techniques
• Follow some UX blogs
• Write a documentation
experience plan
Explore & expand
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24. • cburwinkle@atlassian.com
• Christine Burwinkle on LinkedIn
Contact me
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