Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
June/July 2008
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter June/July 2008 |
Personas (composite representations of typical users) have been used for years in user-centered design and product development. At our April meeting, Joan Lasselle showed how technical communicators can also use personas to develop an information plan that leads to user-centered documentation and training. Personas can help ensure that the information we deliver is the information our users' need.
Joan Lasselle is the founder and president of Lasselle-Ramsay, Inc., a professional services company that has been developing business information and learning solutions since 1982.
Lasselle-Ramsay's goal -- and the goal of any conscientious technical writer -- is to provide information that works for the user: "To deliver the right content at the right time in the right form to the right people."
As Joan pointed out, today, home experience is driving work experience. That is, people expect that if they can find information easily at home on the Internet, they should also be able to find information they need easily on their job.
Joan showed that a comprehensive content management system (CMS) and an effective information architecture can provide a way to give users easy access to the information they need.
A CMS solution can also help us to:
What Joan believes distinguishes her company -- and suggested that we could also use as technical communicators -- is a systematic approach to the CMS solution that starts with understanding the user.
Lasselle-Ramsay does much more than a simple audience analysis. They use techniques drawn from software development for building in-depth use cases and from qualitative research for building in-depth audience profiles.
In-depth profiles of each individual audience show what information they need to do their job, in what form and when -- what Joan calls a work model. When you know the work model, you can determine the content to include, the technology to use to present it, and the best process to follow to use the information management system effectively.
Figure 1: A user-centered information management system
At our meeting, Joan presented a case study in which Lasselle-Ramsay used this systematic approach with a client to move their documentation from a single, 650-page document stored on the contract tech writer's laptop to a CSM solution that produced 10 books and 30 classes pulled from a single source. Joan concentrated on describing how to use personas and walked through those steps in the process.
To create an information design that works for users, Lasselle-Ramsay uses several techniques: user personas, task analyses, and scenarios.
User personas are a rich description of each key audience group, based on their behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment. The technique is based on ethnographic-style field research that Margaret Mead was doing over 100 years ago. It was brought into the software design process by Alan Cooper. His book, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, from 1998, provides a good background on how personas can be used in interface design.
To identify the key audience groups, Joan said that we need to look across functional areas; for example, internal and external, or technical, sales, support, and training.
We also need to account for global differences. For example, a job description we are familiar with in the US may be incorporated into another job in some countries or split among various jobs in others.
But too many user groups are not helpful, Joan pointed out, and she has found that groups can often be combined.
For example, Joan told of one client who wanted twelve groups, each with a different persona, to represent the types of engineer in their audience, but while developing the personas, Lasselle-Ramsay showed that four groups were sufficient since several of the types of engineers were actually much the same.
After establishing the audience groups, Lasselle-Ramsay uses structured phone interviews to gather qualitative information about each group and then develops a limited number of personas to represent these groups.
Through structured interviews and observations, Joan said, we can develop these profile components:
We can then analyze the data and build the personas for each group: a real person with a name, a face, and a voice.
Joan showed us two sample personas: Vicki, the operator of an ultrasound device that Lasselle-Ramsay was documenting, and Dr. Vlk, an interventional cardiologist.
Figure 2: A persona summary that descrbes Dr. Vlk, a clinician
Joan showed us only one page of Dr. Vlk's persona, but she said that each persona Lasselle-Ramsay developed for their client was up to eight pages long.
The descriptions include many quotes taken from the structured interviews and include descriptions of the persona's likes and dislikes, work environment, learning environment, and information and learning needs. For example, Dr. Vlk wants some training in advanced interpretation of the images that the ultrasound device produces, but he wants it in quick little bites, not in a long workshop.
After developing the personas, Lasselle-Ramsay conducts a procedural analysis to identify tasks and subtasks, and the steps to complete then. They validate the tasks with users or subject matter experts.
Lasselle-Ramsay then creates a flowchart to show the relationships of tasks and map the tasks to the user groups. The map, or task/user matrix, helps organize the content and determine the books, documents, and learning programs needed.
Joan showed us part of the task/user matrix from the case study. Lasselle-Ramsay used the matrix and the information it represented to create 10 documents from the CMS, coordinate over 30 learning events, as well as produce roadmaps and other collateral for their client.
Figure 3: A task/user matrix that indicates the tasks each user (helper) performs (mouse over for larger image)
The next step is to create user scenarios or use cases based on the persona and tasks analysis. A scenario shows what it takes for real users to complete a task. It also shows team interaction on a task.
Joan provided this sample. As Joan said: "This is like a day in the life, or a procedure in the life, of Vicki."
Figure 4: A user scenario that describes all of the steps Vicki takes to complete a specific task
Lasselle-Ramsay next performs a content audit; they take an inventory of the existing content and learning components to identify gaps as well as possible reuse. They also analyze product requirements and engineering information for future products.
With the information gathered through user personas, user scenarios, and content evaluation, Lasselle-Ramsay develops the information model.
The information model identifies content functions (background, procedure, troubleshooting) and content elements (specific topics, procedures, and troubleshooting tips) and assigns a database ID for each content element.
Lasselle-Ramsay creates a matrix of the content elements and uses it to identify the element's function, the types of documents it will be included in, and similar information.
Figure 5: A content matrix that shows each element's function, subject matter expert, and output types
(mouse over for larger image)
Finally, Lasselle-Ramsay defines the content strategy for the project. In case study Joan described, they planned to address each of their three defined audiences separately and to provide access to each audience based on their role.
Joan said that the client's previous documentation -- one big book -- was seldom used; it typically ended up on the shelf. The new documentation, which was based on the users' needs, took advantage of new technology to provide information in more appropriate ways. Information in the CMS could also be reused in different formats, lowering development, maintenance, and translation costs. And most importantly, the documentation and training delivered "the right content at the right time in the right form to the right people."