Need Information? We Need You!
May 15th, 2009 by Michele WartherOne of the challenges Webtrends staff and customers share is navigating through reams of information, both current and legacy. With many hundreds of book pages and help topics, sometimes searching for a simple concept or a feature explanation can turn into a crazy scavenger hunt through old printed manuals, saved PDFs, online customer center, and online help.
Which information has the highest value, and what terms, groupings, and search methods make the most sense for different kinds of users? What’s the best way to ensure information is accessible, relevant, and easy to explore? Even Webtrends insiders and industry experts don’t always agree on the answers to these questions. In the end, the real test of documentation usability is whether our customers can find the information they need to generate and understand analytics measurements.
Our Information Development team, formerly Documentation, has been more aggressively collecting information about how the information we publish gets used, understood, reused, transmitted….even crumpled up and discarded. The investigation methods (which Julia talked about in a prior post) we’ve been using include card sorting (to help create a mental model of the terms and categories customers use to organize information), improved documentation tagging for better usage stats, and direct customer input.
At our Engage event in April we ran through some card sorting alongside our paper prototyping group. A few of you readers may have had the chance to attend the group or fill out our survey at event. If you haven’t, please take a few minutes to tell us about how you use Webtrends information.
If you are interested in participating in usability testing at our location, online or just have a question - you can contact us at documentation@webtrends.com or comment here. We’re always eager to hear from you.
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May 15th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I’d rather see what’s on the screen get addressed first, not the downloadable files that we should rarely have to consult *if* the screen material was doing its job.
May 15th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I think this is a very good project. We recently started to heavily use webtrends again and with the economy being what it is, travel is limited and so online help is the way to go. I found it difficult to find what I was looking for at times. Contact me, I would love to help out.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Well, it is very complicated to handle so many informations. As a WebTrends Consultant, we try to collect all customers ideas and questions and we publish FAQs and “best pratices” on our website.
BTW, i would like to participate.. But WHY does surveymonkey.com use google analytics? C’mon..
May 19th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Chris: that’s a great point. We’re working ongoingly with the User Experience team to provide more information in the UI screens while respecting the need for a clean and uncluttered interface. The Tag Builder UI is an early example.
Neil, thanks so much for the offer–we really appreciate your input.
Michael, well, um. Nice catch there. And thank you for the pointer to your online FAQs.