Mandatory changes can be a time to make some additional, much-needed changes. And sometimes, not so much.
15 October 2023
Quixotic.
Let’s make this clear from the start: These thoughts are far from the most important ones we should be exploring these days. So, if you have the capacity to read about content design right now, then this is for you. I know I am using this as a bit of a break from reading about the ongoing tragedies which continue to make headlines. Please, make the time you need for yourself as you go through your day. This post will still be here when you get back.
For those of you continuing on this journey here, I want to share two stories about times when I was tasked with updating some user experiences. One went great. The other was a disaster. Let’s start with the shitshow, first, shall we?
One of my first projects at Twitter as a newly minted Product Content Strategist (our roles and titles and career ladders were constantly evolving when I was there, but that was my title at the time) was to add a new option into the Tweet reporting flow. You know, the one where you notify the content moderation team to say, ”This doesn’t belong on the platform”? What a quaint thought today.
Anywho, I got a note from a Product Manager saying she needed to add an option to the existing ones for reporting a Tweet, specifically, the ability to report hateful conduct. The exact wording was still under discussion with our Legal and Compliance teams, but I would get to write it and shepherd it through our approval process. I just needed to draft an additional bullet like, “It’s abusive or harmful,” which would live alongside the existing reasons for reporting a Tweet, which included, “I’m not interested in it” and “It’s spam”. No problem, right?
I really wanted to nail this first assignment. To go above and beyond. Dazzle ’em. So, I audited what was already there, and reimagined the entire reporting flow. All six screens of it. And then rewrote all of it. I know; under promise and over deliver, right‽ It was a disaster.
By redoing the entire flow, I would add weeks of work to the teams. Designers would have to create new screens and flows, with sign-off from their managers. Engineering would need to set aside time and resources to code the new experience. The Trust & Safety team had to understand the new choices to retool their own enforcement systems. Oh, and we’d need to get approvals from Legal and Compliance on all the new wording before the localization team could even start to translate the new screens into 42 other languages. With my one ambitious idea, I had created work for someone in almost every department throughout the company. Yay, me!
My PM, was not impressed. I was hoping for adulations and accolades and commendations. What I got instead was a stern, but empathetic, realignment from my collaborator who didn’t have time for my individualistic showmanship (thank you, again, Michelle).
Years later at Google, I had a similar opportunity to make a big change when only a small one was requested. This time, however, I handled it very differently. We were renaming a feature, and all of the Google App Ads Help Center pages needed to be revised to reflect the new naming, and update a few of the features. Since we were going to be revising and editing the pages anyway, I thought it might be a good time to make them a bit more user friendly. Sound familiar?
My first move was not to start drafting, though. It was to start a conversation with my PM and Product Marketing manager. One of my first questions was, ”Do we have the capacity to do more?” This led me to pitching my idea of creating a new Help Center hub, improving and consolidating the most-relevant articles under a new information hierarchy to better serve the people who needed this help. We created a working group, which included not just our PM and PMM, but also our Product Operations Manager, Global Product Lead, and Operations Center Lead, to identify internal and external needs, coordinate launch dates and user journeys, and scope the phases of a roll-out plan tied to the renaming launch.
The plan we created included three phases:
Creating a new Help Center hub, which consolidated all the articles relevant to the product, and drafting new ones to fill in any knowledge gaps for people using it for the first time.
Identifying any unmet user needs, based on the data we had from page visits and Customer Service partner metrics, to focus on the top ten, most escalated topics, and creating new articles to address those needs.
Revised and improved articles based on our internal success metrics and user feedback on the existing pages to make sure they aligned with the new product experience.
Lastly, I partnered with our designers to make sure we could do all this within the design system constraints, mirroring the structure and format of other successful Ads Campaign pages, so we could create a familiar information architecture and navigational hierarchy to sort the existing articles. This helped ensure users could find the information they needed as quickly as they could on the rest of our site. This new hub increased satisfaction sentiment rates to 83% — up from the low 60s — and reduced escalations to our Customer Service agents by more than 6% in less than three months. A much better result than just springing a framework on everyone a few days before launch, dontchathink?.
As much as I’d like my work to do my talking for me, I’ve had to reluctantly admit that no matter how stellar the improved user experience is that I pitch, it will never see the light of day if I don’t bring the people along who can help me get it launched. When we have a shared vision, we can do it together. Otherwise, I might as well just tilt at windmills on my own.
Seizing Opportunities
Mandatory changes can be a time to make some additional, much-needed changes. And sometimes, not so much.
15 October 2023
Quixotic.
Let’s make this clear from the start: These thoughts are far from the most important ones we should be exploring these days. So, if you have the capacity to read about content design right now, then this is for you. I know I am using this as a bit of a break from reading about the ongoing tragedies which continue to make headlines. Please, make the time you need for yourself as you go through your day. This post will still be here when you get back.
For those of you continuing on this journey here, I want to share two stories about times when I was tasked with updating some user experiences. One went great. The other was a disaster. Let’s start with the shitshow, first, shall we?
One of my first projects at Twitter as a newly minted Product Content Strategist (our roles and titles and career ladders were constantly evolving when I was there, but that was my title at the time) was to add a new option into the Tweet reporting flow. You know, the one where you notify the content moderation team to say, ”This doesn’t belong on the platform”? What a quaint thought today.
Anywho, I got a note from a Product Manager saying she needed to add an option to the existing ones for reporting a Tweet, specifically, the ability to report hateful conduct. The exact wording was still under discussion with our Legal and Compliance teams, but I would get to write it and shepherd it through our approval process. I just needed to draft an additional bullet like, “It’s abusive or harmful,” which would live alongside the existing reasons for reporting a Tweet, which included, “I’m not interested in it” and “It’s spam”. No problem, right?
I really wanted to nail this first assignment. To go above and beyond. Dazzle ’em. So, I audited what was already there, and reimagined the entire reporting flow. All six screens of it. And then rewrote all of it. I know; under promise and over deliver, right‽ It was a disaster.
By redoing the entire flow, I would add weeks of work to the teams. Designers would have to create new screens and flows, with sign-off from their managers. Engineering would need to set aside time and resources to code the new experience. The Trust & Safety team had to understand the new choices to retool their own enforcement systems. Oh, and we’d need to get approvals from Legal and Compliance on all the new wording before the localization team could even start to translate the new screens into 42 other languages. With my one ambitious idea, I had created work for someone in almost every department throughout the company. Yay, me!
My PM, was not impressed. I was hoping for adulations and accolades and commendations. What I got instead was a stern, but empathetic, realignment from my collaborator who didn’t have time for my individualistic showmanship (thank you, again, Michelle).
Years later at Google, I had a similar opportunity to make a big change when only a small one was requested. This time, however, I handled it very differently. We were renaming a feature, and all of the Google App Ads Help Center pages needed to be revised to reflect the new naming, and update a few of the features. Since we were going to be revising and editing the pages anyway, I thought it might be a good time to make them a bit more user friendly. Sound familiar?
My first move was not to start drafting, though. It was to start a conversation with my PM and Product Marketing manager. One of my first questions was, ”Do we have the capacity to do more?” This led me to pitching my idea of creating a new Help Center hub, improving and consolidating the most-relevant articles under a new information hierarchy to better serve the people who needed this help. We created a working group, which included not just our PM and PMM, but also our Product Operations Manager, Global Product Lead, and Operations Center Lead, to identify internal and external needs, coordinate launch dates and user journeys, and scope the phases of a roll-out plan tied to the renaming launch.
The plan we created included three phases:
Creating a new Help Center hub, which consolidated all the articles relevant to the product, and drafting new ones to fill in any knowledge gaps for people using it for the first time.
Identifying any unmet user needs, based on the data we had from page visits and Customer Service partner metrics, to focus on the top ten, most escalated topics, and creating new articles to address those needs.
Revised and improved articles based on our internal success metrics and user feedback on the existing pages to make sure they aligned with the new product experience.
Lastly, I partnered with our designers to make sure we could do all this within the design system constraints, mirroring the structure and format of other successful Ads Campaign pages, so we could create a familiar information architecture and navigational hierarchy to sort the existing articles. This helped ensure users could find the information they needed as quickly as they could on the rest of our site. This new hub increased satisfaction sentiment rates to 83% — up from the low 60s — and reduced escalations to our Customer Service agents by more than 6% in less than three months. A much better result than just springing a framework on everyone a few days before launch, dontchathink?.
As much as I’d like my work to do my talking for me, I’ve had to reluctantly admit that no matter how stellar the improved user experience is that I pitch, it will never see the light of day if I don’t bring the people along who can help me get it launched. When we have a shared vision, we can do it together. Otherwise, I might as well just tilt at windmills on my own.
See y’all next week?