It’s a new generation for documentation

By Karen Stephens

Creating a better user experience is the driver behind revamping the business continuity documentation we prepare for our clients.

Historically this documentation has been extensive and somewhat difficult to navigate which generally means it doesn’t get used when something goes wrong.  When a crisis happens, people don’t know where to find their paper-based plans, or if they do, they don’t know what’s in them and it’s likely the information is out of date.

Our traditional ideas of these plans needed to change so we have been looking to see what elements of the documents people really need to be able to lay their hands on when things go wrong.

Keeping ahead of the times

We’re looking at the way people source their documents which is different from how they did it in the past – we’re moving to the next generation of documentation and we need to adapt to that.

Clients are now more likely to look for an electronic document when something goes wrong rather than grabbing for something off the shelf. If they’re viewing this document from a mobile device, it needs to be easy to read and follow.

Of course, there is still the cautionary tale that if you don’t have power, or access to the internet, you still need to have access to your electronic files.  Ideally these need to be easily available and cached to your device. And it’s probably still a good idea to have hardcopy files available – ones that are far more streamlined and easy to follow.

We’re currently working to make sure the design of our business continuity documents work on different types of devices and that they are in a format that people find easy to use and engage with.

We’re working with a document design professional to make sure we create documents that work better for our clients.  That means smaller documents that are easier to maintain and keep current.

For our clients that want to go a step further, our mobile crisis management app Talon is available. Talon puts all their crisis information in one place ensuring the crisis team has easy access to the most up to date version regardless of whether they have internet access or not.