anthrobytes

[anthrobytes]

Good UX Writing May Save the World

Discover the importance of UX writing in the tech industry. See why clear and concise instructions are still crucial for user experience. And how good UX writing may, indeed, save the world.

The entire tech industry is convinced of 2 things: 1. No one reads the manual and 2. We’re going to build tech that doesn’t need instructions. Neither of these things are true. No one reads the manual Over my entire career, I’ve been told that no one reads my work product. I’ve always appreciated it when people do that. Especially when it’s the Director of Engineering because that level of…

[anthrobytes]

Getting Feedback: Responding to Customer Feedback

Get specific methods to manage and measure help center feedback and knowledge base feedback. Learn how to reduce product abandon rates and improve customer satisfaction, especially in product led growth.

In a previous article, I covered how to get feedback from your customers on your knowledge base and help system content. Getting help center feedback is important so you know what’s working and how customers feel about the content. It can also be a way to start measuring the quality of post sales content in help centers or knowledge bases. In a product led growth environment, this feedback is…

[anthrobytes]

Onboarding in a Product Led Growth World

Good content drives effective onboarding in #ProductLedGrowth. Discover #ContentStrategies to reduce friction and increase retention. But what content is going to get the customer to the value and close the ability gap?

Onboarding in a product led growth environment gets a lot of focus. For good reason—if the customer can’t get onboarded, it doesn’t matter how awesome the rest of the product is. If the door doesn’t open, it doesn’t matter how special the marble floors are in the apartment several floors up. No one sees it. The time to value is years—or until you can get a locksmith to open the doors. And that’s…

[anthrobytes]

A Style Guide and Terminology Manager Solve a Business Problem

Customer-facing content needs a style guide and probably a terminology manager to reduce content development costs. Learn why in this article.

Do we need a style guide for our help center or knowledge base? And if so, which style guide? How do we enforce the style guide? Should we manage our terminology? These questions arise in multiple places and I always shake my head. Not because I think they’re silly questions—they’re not—but because half the time, someone wants to create these from scratch. That’s a silly—and…

[anthrobytes]

User Feedback on Post Sales Content: Where to Start?

How do you collect feedback and measure of how your post sales content is being used? This article covers 3 easy ways to get started.

Your company spends a lot of money and time creating post sales content to onboard customers and help them solve their problems. And big props to you for doing that. It’s important in the traditional product development cycle and critical in the product led growth space. But are you getting user feedback on post sales content? What do your customers think about that content? In another article,…

[anthrobytes]

Managing Post Sales Content, or Why Word is a Terrible Awful Content Tool

Learn why Word or Google Docs are not suitable for post sales content. Managing post sales content requires specialized content tools. Read more to find out what business problems you have in your post sales content and how to start solving them.

Word (or Google Docs) is everywhere. Every company has them and people spend their days writing reports, project notes, and other business documents in them. So, many companies think, they’re a fine tool to create and manage post sales content. It’s just more documents, the thinking goes, and what works for the marketing project report works for instructions for customers to complete complex…

[anthrobytes]

Defining Quality in a Knowledge Base or Help System

How do you define quality for content for knowledge bases and help systems? It varies based on the businesses needs and goals. Find out why. #Productledgrowth #Tecchnicalcommunication #KnowledgeManagement

When defining quality in a knowledge base or help system content comes up, this quote is the first thing I think of. And it really happened. During the interview, I asked him how to define quality in a knowledge base. He snorted and said, “That’s the issue, isn’t it?” That’s when I knew he didn’t know what he was talking about. –Director of Customer Experience, regarding a massively qualified…

[anthrobytes]

Are They Frequently Asked Questions, Though?

Are Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in knowledge bases really effective? They're not the solution for post-sales customer content. It's lazy writing and lazier information architecture. #productledgrowth #knowledgemanagement #techcomm

Support people and their managers seem to love Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs, in knowledge base content. You see them in almost all knowledge bases. I’ve been pressured to include them and make sure the link is on the first page of the knowledge base, so customers can see them. And they deflect not a single support call. Nor do they ever answer any frequently asked question. Why don’t…

[anthrobytes]

Technical writing: What defines strong technical content?

Strong technical writing isn't an accident. Learn what to look for to improve your product led growth content and reduce localization costs in this article. And for the gods' sake, stop “wishing” in technical content. #Technicalwriting #productledgrowth

Technical writing consists of several skills at the same time, not the least of which is the writing part of technical writing. And in the product led growth environment, the writing matters a lot at every touchpoint in the customer journey. Good technical writing involves skill with the language you’re writing in. That seems basic, but it’s more complex than you were taught to write in high…

[anthrobytes]

Knowledge base templates: Writing for expert audiences

The information needs of expert users in the customer journey can be challenging. Learn to account for them in your #knowledgebase strategy. Improve your product led growth framework by learning how to manage this audience. #Productledgrowth

In previous blog posts, I’ve written about knowledge base content strategy for different levels of users. I’ve covered Naïve and Beginner users and Intermediate users. This post talks about the information needs of your expert users and how to account for them in your knowledge base strategy. User definition chart Let’s review the audiences and the content needs for each…

[anthrobytes]

Knowledge base templates: writing for intermediate customers

The Intermediate audience is where the bulk of your users live. The audience journey is a bell curve, 68% of your users get to and stay in the Intermediate (competent) audience. Learn more in this article. #Productledgrowth #KnowledgeManagement

In a previous blog post, I covered creating knowledge base templates and KB articles for naïve and beginning customers. Let’s review the audiences and the content needs for each audience. Deliverable/AudienceConcepts articlesConcepts videosOnline trainingGeneral How to articles (and videos)Advanced How to articles (and videos)Advanced contentNaïve (non-domain) customersXXXBeginner (domain)…

[anthrobytes]

It's all a process problem

Most problems in product development are process issues. Process problems can cripple your product development team and all downstream teams. Read about how process problems impact your team. #Productledgrowth #ProductDev

In my experience, most problems in product development are process issues. Most problems in product support are process issues. Honestly, most business problems are process problems. But let’s focus on product development problems today. Process lets us identify and define the ways we do things to get the consistent and repeatable result. Processes are living things because as we learn more, we…

[anthrobytes]

Knowledge bases templates: writing for beginning customers

Developing product-use information for Naïve and Beginning audiences has unique challenges. This article explains what these audiences need, including examples. #ProductLedGrowth #Techcomm #UXWriting

In a previous article, I talked about the basics of creating knowledge base articles. I started by talking about audience and mapping content to audience types. This article talks about information for the Naïve and Beginning audiences in the table. I’m including examples that you can reuse for your content. These examples work for technical writing content and for knowledge base articles. The…

[anthrobytes]

Defining the knowledge base content for your audience

Audience drives every detail you include in any communication. What does the audience know before they get to you? What hangers, if you will, do they have in their mental closet? #ProductLedGrowth #KnowledgeManagement #Techcomm

This article starts a series about common knowledge base content you may be writing. This specific article is about writing knowledge base (KB) content in general and developing the knowledge base content strategy. Many companies are delivering content to their customers in a knowledge base that support staff and others contribute to. This knowledge base content is written and delivered in…

[anthrobytes]

Good procedures: Long processes

This article covers how to write long, complex multistep procedures. These procedures are valid sometimes, especially if you're having your reader set up a complicated system. #Productledgrowth #knowledgeManagement @KBwriting #Techcomm

In previous articles, I’ve covered the basics of procedures, how to identify and follow task paths, and how to chunk your procedures to let humans follow them. This (probably) last post covers what to do if you really have a long, multistep procedure. This happens sometime, especially if you’re having your reader set up a complicated system, such as integrating your product with AWS Kubernetes,…

[anthrobytes]

Good procedures: reducing complexity

Writing complex procedures isn't rocket science. Find out more in this post. #Productledgrowth #knowledgeManagement #technicalwriting #techcomm

In previous posts, I’ve talked about the different kinds of procedures and how to write about task paths for your users. Now let’s look at how to structure tasks. We’ve all looked at a set of procedures with 100 steps. Early in my career, I wrote those. I didn’t know better. But long procedures like that are so bad to do to your users. Just looking at that many steps makes you tired. These tips…