Ixiasoft
Streamlining product documentation for SMEs
Working as the sole Product Designer in the team, I designed and prototyped the first version cloud base solution for IXIASOFT CCMS. From June to December 2027, I established the design system, iterated the team, and refined several versions of design. The app was launched by the end of July 2018.
Context
Understanding the problem
A couple of insights
Design Goals
Challenges
Design
A shift in technical writing
For more than 10 years, Ixiasoft played an important role in the technical documentation marketplace, by providing a component content management system based on a modular and flexible XML Standard called DITA. Throughout the years, the company notices a shift in the type of users operating DITA CCMS: more and more organizations were involving SMEs and casual contributors in the content creation process. Unlike technical writers, SMEs don’t have skills to work with DITA Standard and needed a feature-rich solution to contribute to the content creation process.
I was in charge to create a cloud-base application for SMEs to access the core features of the DITA CCMS desktop, allowing them create and edit content and contribute with technical writers in the management workflow. In the first stage, this solution would coexist with the DITA CCMS software, allowing both DITA and non DITA experts to collaborate. The long-term goal was to transform DITA CCMS a full cloud-based solution.
What is DITA?
My first approach to the problem was to learn more about the DITA Standard and the content creation workflow involving technical writers and SMEs in the current solution. DITA Standard consists in a map and topics model, which separates the concern of publication structures (maps) from the concern of content (topics). Maps are simply collections of links to topics. This approach allows the same topic to be easily reused in multiple publications (different maps) or multiple times within the same publication.
How technical writers and SMEs work together?
The collaboration between technical writers and SMEs has changed over time. In the past, SMEs were usually interviewed by technical writers to provide specialized information for an specific piece of the documentation. Nowadays, SMEs are increasingly involved in the content creation process, whereas technical writers play a more editorial role. The basic workflow consists in technical writers assigning content objects for SMEs to either create, collaborate or review DITA content objects, which are topics and maps.
Server-side constraints
In order to keep the existent workflow that would allow both desktop and cloud-based solution to coexist, we needed to create a simple workflow, respecting mandatory processes that were constrained by the server in the desktop solution, like the check-in and check-out process. I created a workflow consisting in 4 steps.
Feature List
One pain point that needed to be addressed was the difficulty SMEs would have to understand intricacies related to the workflow. The process was particularly difficult in the desktop solution and we wanted to avoid to reproduce the same flow. With that in mind, I defined the a feature list below:
1. Check in and Check-out DITA objects with an enhanced user experience.
2. Ability to create, edit and review topics and maps SMEs were assigned
3. Ability to assign content objects to other collaborators
Use Cases Area with streamlined workflows -Creation of special modules like Traffic Intelligence Model, Traffic Impact Analysis, Origin and Destination Analysis, etc.
Checking and Check-out process
In order to simplify mandatory processes that were constrained by the server in the desktop solution my first attempt was to create and iconography to help users distinguish checked-in and checked-out objects. Checked-out objects needed a call to action, cause they could be unavailable to other users who wanted to edit them. Likewise, content objects that were checked-out by other users needed to be identified as unavailable to edit. Content objects that were not DITA native, like collaborative reviews, didn’t need a check-in and check-out process, and also need to have a different look, to not be confused with DITA objects like topics and maps.
The proliferation of icons in the assignment list starting to create confusion too. To simplify the number of actions needed on the part of the user, We decided to offer a automatic check-out whenever the user decided to edit a topic. Detailed wireframes were made communication key concepts with the team of developers and gather feedback of technical writers and DITA experts.
Adopting a UI Library
I suggested the team to use Material Design Library and I customized the UI components to make them consistent with the graphic guidelines defined by Ixiasoft brand. Because of the content-rich material in the platform, we decided to use light colors in the background and blue color as secondary color for important UI elements, as titles, buttons and graphics.
