{"id":359,"date":"2015-02-03T15:29:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-03T20:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/identifying-and-writing-for-your-users-goals\/"},"modified":"2015-02-03T15:29:02","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T20:29:02","slug":"identifying-and-writing-for-your-users-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/identifying-and-writing-for-your-users-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Identifying and Writing for Your Users&#8217; Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Goal-oriented documentation is effective documentation. In this article, we\u2019ll look at how to identify your users&#8217; goals and create content that meets them.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-356\" src=\"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/utilisateur-320x214.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"214\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>Go ahead: ask them!<\/h4>\n<p>The first step in identifying what your users&#8217; goals and want from your documentation is to ask them! Really! Take a direct approach and formulate open-ended questions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What kind of support do you need for your use?<\/li>\n<li>What challenges do you come across in using our product or service?<\/li>\n<li>What information have you looked for but couldn\u2019t find in current documentation?<\/li>\n<li>What additional information do you need to use our product or service more effectively?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When you don\u2019t have direct access to the users of your product or service, ask those who are as close as you can get, like distributors, sales people or customer service representatives, for instance. You might even ask these players to specifically query your clients for you.<\/p>\n<h4>Putting the pieces together<\/h4>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve collected enough data, you\u2019ll need to do a bit of summarizing. Which users&#8217; goals\u00a0are expressed repeatedly? Which are essentially the same even if they\u2019ve been phrased differently? (Sometimes informants will identify the same goals, but from different angles or with different end uses).<\/p>\n<h4>One at a time, please!<\/h4>\n<p>Now that you have clearly listed the users&#8217; goals\u00a0your documentation must address, it\u2019s time to define your topics. In short, each goal will become one topic. Sometimes it will be necessary to divide broad goals into sections and address these with multiple topics.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly how you write your topics will depend on the type of goal you\u2019ll be addressing. Is your topic a:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Concept: How something works<\/li>\n<li>Reference: Technical information<\/li>\n<li>Task: How-to procedures<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Double-check that you understand your users\u2019 needs enough to assign their goals to one of these three categories. After all, identifying which need is best met by which topic type is key to creating effective documentation.<\/p>\n<h4>A prototype in time saves nine\u2026<\/h4>\n<p>Now that you\u2019ve defined your users\u2019 goals, start writing! It\u2019s a good idea to start by creating a short prototype document based on the information you\u2019ve collected. It will be easy to go back to your informants, with this sample in hand, and validate that your approach truly meets your users\u2019 needs. This reduces the stakes and makes it easy to tweak or even completely reorient your documentation before you\u2019ve invested much time or money in full-out production. This step can be simple, but don\u2019t forget to ask basic questions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do you like it?<\/li>\n<li>Do you find it useful?<\/li>\n<li>Is it accessible and easy to use in your work?<\/li>\n<li>In other words: <strong>Does our documentation meet your needs?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Green light! Writing for your users&#8217; goals<\/h4>\n<p>Congratulations! Now all that\u2019s left is drafting your full-length document! As you know, effective documentation is documentation that meets your users\u2019 needs, whatever those may be. When your documentation is goal-oriented, users will have an easier time appropriating and using your product. After all, it helps them do what needs doing! Not bad for a bit of legwork, wouldn\u2019t you say?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Goal-oriented documentation is effective documentation. In this article, we\u2019ll look at how to identify your users&#8217; goals and create content that meets them. Go ahead: ask them! The first step in identifying what your users&#8217; goals and want from your documentation is to ask them! Really! Take a direct approach and formulate open-ended questions like: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical-communication-strategy","category-technical-writing-and-documentation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lios.dev.creationsunivers.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}