Navigation design for a flagship product
I performed a competitive evaluation, analyzed client feedback I'd collected, and drew on my experience to redesign a documentation site from the top down. My vision was jargon-free navigation.
I formed and led a team of technical writers, engineers, testers, designers, and client-facing subject matter experts in the design of each section of the new navigation. I made a project plan and oversaw implementation by approximately 18 writers.
A customer lab advocate told me, "[Our enterprise client] commented how vastly improved the information center is in Version 6 [compared to Version 5]." Another client remarked, "The table of contents typically is so good that I don't have to use search."
After 10 years and 6 major product releases, my design has helped thousands of unique visitors to the site. It's been receiving 300K monthly views in the latest release (at this time).
Standards for 1100 practitioners
While leading the "Access Model" workgroup for the IBM Information Architecture (IA) council, I worked with colleagues to define standards for navigation design, search engine optimization (SEO), and linking. The audience was an approximately 1100-member community of practitioners, primarily technical writers.
I also contributed to content template and meta data tagging standards for the same audience. My innovations in content capture were estimated to have saved my own product $750K in writing labor and $8M in translation labor over two product releases.
Standards for 4400 practitioners
So far, my standards had reached the technical writers who create official product documentation for IBM hardware and software, and information architects concerned with the user experience of our documentation sites.
I expanded my content standards work into the Total Information Experience (TIE) community of 4400 practitioners who authored any form of product technical information, including documentation, IBM Redbooks, Education, and Support bulletins.
I led or contributed to forming standards that remained relevant for more than 8 years.
Deliverables for 25,000+ practitioners
Despite improvements in product-level information, clients still needed integrated, customized technical information for their solutions, which consisted of many products being used together.
Client-facing implementers were the authorities on their clients' solutions, but they weren't writers. They needed super-easy tools and templates to compile solution-level information for clients, reusing product information and with best practices in content design and information architecture baked into the tools and templates.
I formed the first workgroup to cross organizational boundaries to address this client need. In three years, 22 of us captured 60 best practices and delivered a toolkit (templates included) on the IBM external site.
Multi-product solution navigation formed from the experience of 40+ different units and councils within the company, via a workgroup I started and led