Design manager documentation audit
In 2018, HubSpot's design manager tool was being redesigned to create a more modern and intuitive experience. This posed a unique challenge, as there were nearly 100 knowledge base articles impacted by the change.
To save our team time and improve the content experience overall, I audited our existing content on our knowledge base and developer documentation. Then I created a plan to simplify the update process and improve the content.
Collaboration
- Product team: pitched the strategy to simplify existing content to the product manager and lead developer. Illustrated how content would be reorganized and actioned. Incorporated their notes and feedback into the plan.
- Developer: coordinated with my team's developer to identify existing knowledge base article for the design manager category. We created a plan to track and publish changes in bulk on the day of the release based on product marketing timelines.
- Technical writers: worked with my team of writers to consolidate and update articles with the new designs and concepts.
Solution
- Identified duplicate or redundant content, and followed up with subject matter experts for clarification where needed.
- Proposed how to consolidate documentation into canonical user guides and how-to articles.
- Created a workflow for my team to take action on existing content to revise, consolidate, or redirect the existing content.
Results
- Reduced the number of knowledge base articles about this feature by 50% (from 91 to 44).
- Designed a quick-tour article that links to relevant articles and serves as a pillar page for key features.
- Updated developer documentation to consistent cross-link to relevant knowledge base pages.
