Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Documentation Your Team Will Actually Use
Gold
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Share the love for this talk
Documentation Your Team Will Actually Use
Speakers: Gabrielle Verderber
Link:

Summary

Picture this: You spend weeks writing up your UX Playbook. Your Playbook covers every design and research method your team might use, when to use it, and how. It’s PERFECT. And... no one reads it. I’ve been there! I’ve led or contributed to 4 Playbooks, 2 toolkits and uncountable miscellaneous “how to” docs in my 8 years as a UX Designer and Operations Manager. In this talk, we’ll cover how to: avoid common pitfalls in documentation, discover what your team needs most, apply a design process to your documentation efforts and deliver incremental value through documentation your team will actually use.

Key Insights

  • There are two main documentation types: process/policy docs created by managers or design ops, and project records created by individual contributors.

  • Playbooks organize information by work stages matching the organization's mental model, including detailed plays with instructions and templates.

  • Common pitfalls in playbooks include non-actionable info, poor navigation, cognitive overload, and outdated content.

  • Teams want documentation specific to their organization's processes, not generic explanations.

  • Navigation should align with users' mental models and include searchable content and cross-linking for discoverability.

  • Cognitive overload is reduced by using visual hierarchy, headers, lists, and removing unnecessary 'fluff'.

  • Regularly reviewing and updating documentation preserves trust and usability.

  • Applying a design thinking process—empathize, prioritize, prototype, test, circulate—improves documentation value and adoption.

  • Deliver small, complete documentation sections incrementally rather than waiting for a perfect complete playbook.

  • Shared ownership and collaboration on documentation fosters greater adoption and accuracy; design ops should avoid sole ownership.

Notable Quotes

"When we say documentation, I think of there being two main types: process and policy docs, and project records."

"Our folks are not looking for information about what are wireframes. They want information specific to your organization."

"If folks can't find the information, it doesn't matter how well it is written."

"Avoid walls of text and create visual hierarchy to ensure scanability by using headers, sections, lists and images."

"Imagine a team member goes to your playbook and the first link they click lands on a 404 page—this erodes trust."

"You don't want to dictate the process, especially if you're new to an organization."

"Your prototype is going to be imperfect. That's okay. Deliver small but complete sections to provide value sooner."

"I love getting other people in there. Shared ownership means people reference it more often and promote it."

"You should set a usage goal and track adoption metrics to learn why users may not be engaging with the documentation."

"A playbook is not a one hit wonder. You'll need someone to keep it up to date and revisit regularly."

Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Mila Kuznetsova
How Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Theme Three Intro
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Luke Roberts
Panel Discussion
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Patrick Commarford
Design Staffing for Impact
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa (Videoconference)
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group (Rosenfeld Community)
Victor Udoewa
Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Adrian Howard
Sturgeon’s Biases
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Dem Gerolemou
Climate technology fundamentals (Videoconference)
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group (Rosenfeld Community)
Chelsea Mauldin
Let's Talk About Money
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Leading through the long tail of trauma (Videoconference)
2022 • Enterprise Community
Tutti Taygerly
Videconference: How to Work with Difficult People with Tutti Taygerly
2020 • Enterprise Community
Luz Bratcher
This Is a Talk for Tired People
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
JD Buckley
COMMUNICATE: Discussion
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Maria Skaaden
Panel Discussion: Methodologies and Work Environments
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Leading through the long tail of trauma (Videoconference)
1970 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Daniela Magaña Flores

"Amazon performs better on mobile than on desktop according to our Net Promoter Score measurements."

Daniela Magaña Flores Ariane Rahn Jeff Ephraim Bander

Ahead of Competition: Learn What UX Benchmarking Can Do for Your Business Today

March 10, 2022

Savina Hawkins

"The secret sauce behind GPT’s abilities is the transformer architecture, the latest in kitchen technology that allows the chef to work really fast and efficiently."

Savina Hawkins

Harnessing AI in UXR: Practical Strategies for Positive Impact

March 26, 2024

Alex Hurworth

"Policies must evolve to reflect the urgency of our situation."

Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine Marin

Designing a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access

October 23, 2020

Matt Duignan

"We try to avoid researchers just dumping entire presentations; we encourage structuring insights natively in Hits."

Matt Duignan

HITS, Microsoft's internal human insight system: From research library to living body of knowledge (Videoconference)

July 16, 2019

Craig Villamor

"Dark patterns trick or manipulate users into doing something they wouldn’t normally do or against their own or society’s best interests - Craig Vor."

Craig Villamor

Design Systems for Ethical Design (Videoconference)

January 26, 2023

Ovetta Sampson

"If you don't think that you can go to battle day in and day out, UX might not be for you because that's what it is."

Ovetta Sampson

Turning UX Passion into Real Product Influence

June 7, 2023

Rima Campbell

"To advance design maturity, you need a tight business partnership between product management and design ops leaders."

Rima Campbell Amrit S Bhachu

Increase Productivity and Drive Business Impact

September 24, 2024

Amy Gawronski Zuccaro

"Making friends is about 75% of the game in my job because we solve problems together."

Amy Gawronski Zuccaro

Advice for DesignOps Employee #1

September 29, 2021

Victor Udoewa

"Systems of value determine whose knowledge we increase and whose knowledge we diminish."

Victor Udoewa

Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

March 26, 2024