This project is a Comprehensive Web Help System designed to help students navigate and use Hokiespa. Hokiespa is Virginia Tech’s system for students to register for courses, store and check personal and financial information, obtain transcripts, and view major requirements. I developed this project in my Creating User Documentation class. It was a collaborative project, so I worked with one other student. Our task was to design a web help product for a client.
We performed user research to identify a problem and a solution by interviewing users. This research showed us that the majority of students are unaware of all the functions that Hokiespa offers. This was a big problem because Hokiespa contains information that is extremely pertinent for students to be able to access and understand. We decided to write instructions for the most relevant and useful tasks for first year students. Therefore, our target audience was freshmen and transfer students.
Using DITA, we broke the tasks down into sections and organized them in the same structure as the Hokiespa menu. We wrote the instructions, organized the content, and designed the collaborative help system. We then performed user testing and made adjustments based on that feedback. This project taught me how to organize and display content for a specific group of users.
Click here to view the collaborative web help system.
