Close Encounters: Connecting with Users to Improve Content
Presentation Abstract
Traditional User Assistance/Technical Publications teams are often far removed from their users. The source for most of the information for learning content comes from design specs and the development team. But how do you know whether your content meets the needs of your users? What information do they need that you’re not providing? Or maybe the content is there, but they just can’t find it. How will you know?
Attend this presentation to learn how to connect with users to improve the quality of your documentation and other learning content. Explore the different ways and levels of interactions that you can have with users. And be ready to learn from them! Understand their pain points, and gain insights into how you can improve the content.
In this session, you will learn four reasons why you should get to know your users and ten different ways to approach it. You’ll consider how these methods vary in difficulty, cost (time and resources), and degrees of interaction with users (direct vs. indirect). Finally, you’ll learn an approach that will help you get started as soon as you return to the office.
When you have close encounters of the user kind, the result is high-quality, useful learning content that hits the bull’s eye, and you gain credibility with your users and within your organization.
What can attendees expect to learn?
Many technical writers are daunted by the thought of direct interactions with users. But if we are to really help them, we need to learn from our users and to gain empathy for the challenges they face every day. Attend this session to learn why you should reach out to users, what you stand to gain from it, and specific ways to go about it. This presentation offers a survey of methods for user interactions or research, and practical tips on how to get started.
Meet the Presenter
Patty Gale is a Principal Learning Content Developer at Autodesk, where she is involved in many aspects of the design, development, and production of learning content for 3D modeling software. Patty serves as the team’s information architect and content strategist. With over 25 years as a Technical Communicator, Patty has worked at businesses of all sizes, from small start-ups to large corporations. Whether the sole writer or part of a large team, Patty enjoys learning new technologies and determining the most effective way to share important information with users. She has received multiple awards from her employers and STC competitions, including an International Award of Distinguished Technical Communication. Patty holds Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Business Management.