User Experience for Content Management Systems

The difference between a good design doc and a great one is usually clarity. Technical writing should be crisp and to the point. So, it is always better to treat every sentence like it has a cost. After writing, cut aggressively. Remove extra words. Then check if a line can go. Sometimes even a full paragraph is unnecessary. One thing I always do is to start the doc with the conclusion; this way, the reader/reviewer knows where we are heading. This is contrary to how most engineers write docs - listing every approach first and only concluding at the end. That slows readers down. I avoid this because long explanations make people lose track; most readers want the conclusion quickly. So, always start with the answer and why it matters. Then add details and alternatives below for those who want depth. A habit that helps is a quick editing pass like this: - Remove filler words and repeated ideas. - Break long sentences into smaller ones. - Prefer bullets when listing options or steps. - Check if the first section clearly states the outcome. - Add a link or short explanation where a reader may pause. Empathy matters more than most people realize. Try to read your document as someone new to the topic. Ask yourself what might confuse them. Add the missing context. Add the helpful link. Let the ideas evolve naturally from problem to solution. This skill develops over time. Use simple language and fewer buzzwords. The goal is to communicate, not impress. Simple documents get read more. More readers means better alignment and better visibility for the work. Finally, always provide enough context. A short setup about the problem, constraints, and prior decisions goes a long way. It helps readers understand why the decision exists, and, of course, it prevents unnecessary back and forth later. Hope this helps.

✍🏽 How To Write Better To Help People Read. With practical guidelines on how to help readers scan content more efficiently and understand it better ↓ ✅ Users rarely read on the web: they mostly scan. ✅ Chunks of unformatted text cause F-Shape scanning. 🤔 Users miss large chunks of content and skip key details. ✅ They read ~20% of a page; longer page → less reading. ✅ They spend 80% of time viewing the left half of a page. 🤔 When we use longer words, users skip shorter words. 🚫 Avoid long walls of text → max. 50 words/paragraph. 🚫 Avoid long sentences → max. 20 words/sentence. ✅ Write for mobile first: brief, clear, concise — prioritize. ✅ Leave room for translation: text might grow by 40%. ✅ Map your voice and tone against impact and purpose. ✅ Choose your words depending on the tone to match. ✅ Include a plain language summary, even for legal docs. ✅ Use Inverted Pyramid: key insights first, details below. ✅ If it doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t read right either. 🚫 Nothing is more effective than removing waste/fluff. On the web, people scan pages at incredible speeds. They jump from headings to bold keywords to bullet points. They puzzle together pieces of content. They seek insights and answers in unstructured and poorly written walls of text. And too often words are generic, technical, formal, long and overcomplicated. Plain language always works better. Shorter sentences are easier to read. Simpler words are easier to understand. It holds true for everyone, including domain experts and specialists who typically have the most to read. Yet too often, words are chosen almost mindlessly — along with repetitive phrases, unnecessary details and confusing jargon. A great way to avoid it is to test your writing. Read aloud critical parts of your messaging. If it doesn’t sound right, it most likely doesn’t read right either. Ask people to highlight parts that they find most useful. Use Cloze test to check comprehension. And: prioritize what matters, and declutter what doesn’t. ✤ Content Design in Design Systems Atlassian: https://lnkd.in/eGpzQqm4 Amplitude: https://lnkd.in/eaB85T7n 👍 DHL: https://lnkd.in/eF494fkT Girlguiding: https://lnkd.in/eZ8zMyC3 👍 Gov.uk: https://lnkd.in/ekRadXad 👍 Intuit: https://lnkd.in/eGyBUrZ2 👍 JSTOR: https://lnkd.in/eAnyrtcu 👍 MetLife: https://lnkd.in/evVE8sqf 👍 Monzo: https://lnkd.in/edVV8QWz Progressive’s: https://lnkd.in/evx_8bzY 👍 Schibsted: https://lnkd.in/et_BXg6R Shopify: https://lnkd.in/eAKgEHNW Skrill: https://lnkd.in/e2HGTq4q 👍 Slack: https://lnkd.in/ejZ2QtJa Zendesk: https://lnkd.in/euxijT5m 👍 Wise: https://lnkd.in/eWk-Mvf9 ✤ Useful resources: Plain Language Guidelines https://lnkd.in/eV2sxSyJ How To Write Good Interface, by Nick DiLallo https://lnkd.in/edwTaKcQ Content Testing Guidelines, by Intuit https://lnkd.in/ewZSVT3i Voice and Tone In UX Writing (+ PDF Worksheets) https://lnkd.in/e6r4cC8Y #ux #writing

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐋𝐌 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐬. Here is what nobody tells you about why your RAG system keeps hallucinating 👇 Most engineers obsess over prompts and temperature settings. Meanwhile, their queries are doing this: - Arriving vague and contextless - Missing critical semantic variations - Trying to answer 5 questions at once - Getting routed to the wrong knowledge base 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐱? 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐬. Here is the actual architecture that separates production RAG from toy demos: 𝟏. 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 Turn "API not working" into "authentication failure modes in REST endpoints" One captures intent. The other actually retrieves useful context. 𝟐. 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 Your vector DB does not know that "LLM" and "large language model" mean the same thing. Add variants. Boost recall. Stop missing obvious matches. 𝟑. 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 "How do I fine-tune Llama 3 for customer support and deploy it cost-effectively?" That is not one query. That is three. Break it. Parallelize it. Actually answer it. 𝟒. 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 This is where it gets interesting. Before you touch your retriever: - Analyze intent - Route intelligently  - Validate what came back - Decide if you even have enough to generate 𝟓. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐩𝐬 Weak context? → Loop back and refine Strong context? → Generate with confidence Incomplete? → Don't hallucinate. Go get more. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠: The best LLM systems don't start with "write a better prompt." They start with "did we even ask the right question?" Real talk: What breaks first in your system? - Query rewriting catching garbage input? - Retrieval returning irrelevant chunks?   - Orchestration making the wrong routing call? 𝐃𝐫𝐨𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐰. 𝐋𝐞𝐭'𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫. 👇 ♻️ Repost this to help your network get started ➕ Follow Anurag(Anu) Karuparti for more PS: If you found this valuable, join my weekly newsletter where I document the real-world journey of AI transformation. ✉️ Free subscription: https://lnkd.in/esF52fm5 #AgenticAI #AIAgents #AILLMS

The best product experiences are when users feel: "This is exactly what I wanted." Search is a big part of that. But here’s the problem - users don’t search in perfect keywords. Real user queries are messy: • multilingual (“milk”, “doodh”) • phonetic (“shehed” → honey) • intent-led (“kapde rakhne ka bag” → laundry bag) • typo-heavy (“hair klips”) Which means traditional search often fails them. So we rethought Search on Zepto. What changed: • Moved from keyword matching → semantic + vector search • Leveraged LLMs for query understanding & normalization • Improved long-tail recall without hurting precision • Designed for low-latency inference at production scale The goal was simple: 👉 Understand what the user means, not what they type But the real win is simple: 👉 You can now search the way you think. Just type - we’ll figure it out 🔍

We recently wrapped up usability testing for a client project. In the fast-paced environment of agency culture, the real challenge isn’t just gathering insights—it’s turning them into actionable outcomes, quickly and efficiently. Here’s how we ensured that no data was lost, priorities were clear, and progress was transparent for all stakeholders: 1️⃣ Organized Documentation: We broke the barriers— and documented on Excel sheet to categorize all observations into usability issues, enhancement ideas, and general comments. Each issue was tagged with severity (critical, high, medium, low) and frequency to highlight trends and prioritize fixes. 2️⃣ Action-Oriented Workflow: For high-severity and high-frequency issues, immediate fixes were planned to minimize potential impact. Ownership was assigned to specific team members, with timelines to ensure quick resolutions, in line with our fast-moving development cycle. 3️⃣ Client Transparency: A summarized report was shared with the client, showing the issues identified, the actions taken, and the progress made. This kept everyone aligned and built confidence in our iterative design process. Previously, I’ve never felt the level of confidence that comes from having such detailed and well-organized documentation. This documentation not only gave us clarity and streamlined our internal processes but also empowered us to communicate progress effectively to the client, reinforcing trust and showcasing the value of our iterative approach. It’s a reminder that thorough documentation isn’t just about organizing data—it’s about enabling smarter, faster decision-making. In agency culture, speed matters—but so does precision. How does your team balance the two during usability testing?

Most inaccessible documents aren’t created out of bad intent. No-one does it on purpose. They’re created out of habit. The good news is you don’t need to be an accessibility expert to help build a culture where accessible documents become the norm. Small behaviours, repeated often, shape organisational culture far more than policies do. Here are five simple things anyone can do, right now. (You can also find some further resources in the comments.) 1 - Build accessibility into your workflow Treat accessibility checks the same way you treat spellcheck. Before sending a document, take a minute to run an accessibility check and scan for obvious issues. When accessibility becomes a normal step in the workflow, it stops being an afterthought and starts becoming routine. 2 - Be an ally. You don’t have to personally need accessibility to advocate for it. Ask whether documents have been checked. Encourage colleagues to think about accessibility. If something isn’t accessible, raise it constructively, push back gently if someone sends you something that isn’t accessible. Cultural change often begins with someone asking the question. 3 - Learn the tools you already have Most people already have everything they need. Simple features such as document headings (heading 1, 2 etc), meaningful link titles, and built in accessibility checkers make a huge difference. Learning how to use these properly can transform the usability of a document in minutes. 4 - Think beyond screen readers. Whilst a crucial part of it, accessibility isn’t just about screen reader compatibility. Clear structure, readable layouts, logical headings, and descriptive links make documents easier for everyone to navigate and understand. Accessibility improves usability for the entire organisation. 5 - Automate your mailbox One simple trick is creating an Outlook rule that replies to anyone who sends you an attachment asking whether the document has been checked for accessibility. It’s a gentle prompt that helps build awareness and encourages better habits over time. Bonus tip - set the standard. If you want others to care about accessible documents, your own documents need to set the standard. When people consistently receive accessible content from you, it reinforces that accessibility is not an optional extra. It is simply how good work gets done. Accessibility culture doesn’t start with experts. It starts with everyday habits. ID: a Robbie Crow Purple infographic titled “Five top tips to build a culture of document accessibility”. It summarises the points in this post and full alt text can be found in the image. The graphic uses purple, pale yellow and gold branding with a “Progress Over Perfection” badge at the bottom.

Ever watched someone, or that someone is you, manually update 50+ SharePoint documents with the same metadata value? That's 10 minutes of clicking they, or you will never get back. Grab a coffee and let's chat about SharePoint Quick Steps for a few minutes. Quick Steps have been in Outlook for ages, but now they are making their way to SharePoint document libraries. I have been taking them for a test drive over the past few days with client and here's what they are loving about them: "Wow, we can update metadata across dozens of documents with literally one click." "Being able to email document owners directly from SharePoint saves my team so much context-switching time. We're not bouncing between apps anymore." "The Teams chat integration is brilliant. I click once and I'm already messaging the document owner with the file link ready to go." "The best part? we didn't need IT's help to set any of this up. No code, no workflow designer, just point and click." Now their business users are handling more automation and productivity gains themselves. It's not a new skill—it's a new habit. And for teams drowning in document management tasks, it's worth forming. Still early days, but I'm seeing massive time savings, especially for finance and legal teams I am working with that need to process many documents at a time and who live and die by their metadata. Here are 3 of them right here in this video. #SharePoint

 You can’t expect a RAG system to shine if the query never gets a chance to prove itself. Here’s the hot take: building RAG 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 a query agent is leaving performance on the table. Why? Real‑world users are messy. They: ☑ Ask vague things like “tell me about the thing from last month”   ☑ Use terminology that doesn’t match your docs   ☑ Throw multi‑part questions at you that need breaking down   ☑ Don’t know how to phrase a query for optimal retrieval  A query agent does more than just search. It reasons about intent and can: ☑ Expand unclear queries into several precise searches   ☑ Decompose complex questions into bite‑size parts   ☑ Route the request to the right data source   ☑ Reformulate the question for better retrieval  We put it to the test. Comparing Weaviate’s Search Mode (powered by our Query Agent) against traditional hybrid search on 12 industry benchmarks – BEIR, LoTTe, BRIGHT and more – the results were clear: ☑ +17 % improvement in Success @ 1   ☑ +11 % improvement in Recall @ 5   ☑ Smallest gain +5 %, biggest gain +24 %  Those numbers come from real‑world scenarios ranging from scientific papers to customer‑support tickets, and they consistently beat the best hybrid setups. How Search Mode works under the hood: ☑ Query expansion and decomposition   ☑ Schema introspection   ☑ Automatic reranking   ☑ Dynamic collection routing  The agent understands your schema, reasons about the user’s intent, and orchestrates multiple retrieval strategies to deliver the right answer. Yes, there’s a slight latency cost – extra model inferences – but if quality matters more than a few milliseconds, the trade‑off is worth it. TLDR: The era of naive RAG is over. Users don’t ask perfect questions, so our systems shouldn’t expect them to. I’m Shrey Shah & I share daily guides on AI.   If this helped, hit the ♻️ reshare button so someone else can level up their RAG stack.

Query understanding is becoming the real bottleneck in modern search. After spending the past several months deep in this space, one thing has stood out: retrieval isn’t the hard part anymore. Understanding what the user actually means is. We have no shortage of retrieval techniques: lexical, vector, hybrid, sparse. But none of them help if the system misinterprets intent. Most queries do more than one thing at once: - Express a topic - Encode constraints or filters - Signal intent (navigate vs explore vs decide) - Imply how much latency and intelligence the system can afford When that decomposition is wrong, everything downstream breaks. You either overpay for semantics when structure would suffice, or under-interpret queries that actually need semantic expansion. This is why query understanding is quietly becoming the control plane of search: - It routes queries to different retrieval paths - It decides how much ranking or synthesis to apply - It gates cost, latency, and even evaluation depth “Semantic search” isn’t a default. It’s something the system has to earn, query by query. As search systems become more adaptive and answer-centric, query understanding is turning into the highest-leverage part of the stack. Retrieval is mostly solved. Understanding isn’t. #SearchSystems #QueryUnderstanding #InformationRetrieval #HybridSearch

Typography is not an aesthetic choice. It is an accessibility filter. Your official "Brand Guidelines" might be committing an accessibility violation every time you hit publish. We obsess over inclusive language, yet we ignore inclusive design. We demand people bring their "whole selves" to work, then hand them documents their brains cannot process. If your strategy document is written in 10-point Times New Roman, fully justified, on a stark white background... you have statistically locked out 20% of your workforce before they read the first word. You aren't sharing information. You are creating cognitive friction. Below is the visual proof. Ironically, it's overwhelming to me... If you feel similarly drop a comment! If you have ideas on how to take detailed directives and format them in a more visual representation let me know! This audits the "Standard" corporate style vs the "Neuro-Inclusive" alternative. Here are 9 Ways to Build Inclusive Typography. (Save this matrix for your next internal audit) 1. The "Serif" Ban ❌ Barrier: Decorative "feet" (Serifs) create visual noise. ✅ Fix: Default to Sans-Serif (Verdana, Lexend). (Reduces decoding load for Dyslexic readers). 2. Strict Left Alignment ❌ Barrier: "Justified" text creates distracting "rivers" of white space. ✅ Fix: Ragged Right. Always align flush left. Creates a consistent visual anchor for eye-tracking). 3. The "Stark White" Shift ❌ Barrier: Pure Black on Pure White creates a "strobe" effect. ✅ Fix: Use "Off-White" backgrounds with Dark Grey text. (Reduces visual stress and sensory fatigue). 4. The 1.5 Spacing Rule ❌ Barrier: Single spacing creates a dense "Wall of Text." ✅ Fix: Set line spacing to 1.5. (Prevents accidental line-skipping). 5. Emphasis Strategy ❌ Barrier: 𝘐𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘴 deform shapes; U̳n̳d̳e̳r̳l̳i̳n̳e̳ cuts letters. ✅ Fix: Use 𝐁𝐨𝐥𝐝 weight for emphasis. (Maintains letter stability). 6. The "Frankenstein" Prevention ❌ Barrier: Pasting mixed fonts creates a "Ransom Note" effect. ✅ Fix: Paste as Plain Text (Ctrl+Shift+V). (Reduces visual distraction). 7. User Agency (File Formats) ❌ Barrier: PDFs "lock" the view. ✅ Fix: Send the editable Word/Google Doc. (Allows users to customize font/size for their needs). 8. CamelCase Hashtags ❌ Barrier: #alllowercasetext is unreadable to screen readers. ✅ Fix: Capitalize the first letter (#InclusiveDesign). (Ensures software pronounces it correctly). 9. Hyperlink Description ❌ Barrier: "Click Here" offers no context. ✅ Fix: Descriptive links ("Download Report"). (Provides navigational safety). Typography is Policy. If your team has to spend energy decoding your message, they have no energy left to understand it. There are so many more we could add here. What do you wish was included? Next week I would love to provide 9 MORE ways to be inclusive within Typography to expand this community-focused tool! #Accessibility #InclusiveDesign #Typography #Neurodiversity #Leadership