Enriching the User Experience
Because Autotask delivers its software as cloud-based services, the company has used Flare to optimize its customers’ online experiences, most notably through the implementation of context-sensitive HTML5-based Help.
Today every page of Autotask’s software now corresponds to a page in its online Help system. The Flare-based system accounts for several separate projects and applications, including one that manages 1,500 topics.
"Everything is pretty much linked in a page to Autotask itself because we're making our documentation work in a context-sensitive way," Angela notes. “That means our customers now have single-click access to information about the software features they are using.”
Autotask also has adopted HTML5 to enrich its online Help by developing a frameless, search engine-friendly system for its cloud-based software. The HTML5 output supports partial-word searches, which allows users to type part of a word and quickly deliver results matching those characters—significantly streamlining the search process.
Additionally, Autotask has improved its search results by incorporating a summary sentence at the top of every Help file, so users can immediately gain a sense of what a topic is about.
"With HTML5, we have created a nice, modern looking online Help system with a more Google-like user interface that gives our customers a familiar and comfortable search experience," Angela explains.
More recently, Autotask has implemented the hosted MadCap Feedback Service to enhance its users' experiences.
"We just started using Feedback to gather customer insights and monitor how and what areas of the Help they are using,” says Angela. “This information and the vast number of reports that Feedback provides, will be valuable in understanding how we can improve our documentation to better serve users."