Judges were impressed by the ambitious project to re-design existing help materials
Saltaire, West Yorkshire, UK, 19 October 2020 – BTL is pleased to share that the Surpass Help Site has been crowned as the overall winner of the 2020 UK Technical Communication Awards.
The award comes after a two-year project to re-design existing online help materials, after the Surpass Product Communications team recognized the need to improve usability of the resources in line with the evolution of the Surpass assessment platform.
In a truly collaborative effort, the team worked across the business to carry out extensive user-focused research, in order to gain a full understanding of how the help materials were being used. Findings from usability testing informed the re-design to ultimately create a professional collection of resources to guide users in their everyday use of Surpass.
With users designing assessments across a range of different sectors, and with varying levels of technical ability, The Surpass Help covers the comprehensive functionality of the platform end-to-end, with easy to navigate and easy to understand explanations of complex functionality. Providing excellent resources is key to users getting the most out of the technology available, making the Help site a pivotal part of an organization’s success with Surpass.
Judges feedback on the winning entry included:
“This is a very impressive entry; it was ambitious in scope creating an online document suite providing task-based content specifically for online use. This was approached as a page-one re-structure and re-write of existing content. This involved extensive research, much cross-team work and usability testing throughout the project. The entry is engaging and evidently user-focused. The look and feel is inviting; use of text and graphics is appropriate and consistent. The user can be confident in the quality of the information provided. The judges declared this to be an outstanding end product for an exceptional team effort.”
Tom Wardak, Senior Technical Author and Trainer commented:
“We are absolutely delighted that the Help site has been recognized with this award and couldn’t be happier with the judges’ feedback. Our goal with this project was to revolutionize our help materials and create a truly professional platform that our users could depend on. This would not have been possible without the expertise, dedication, and tireless work of all members of the Product Communications and Training team, past and present, as well as the Design team and countless members of BTL staff who volunteered to be test subjects throughout the development process. This was truly a cross-departmental team effort and I cannot thank everyone enough.”
The UK Technical Communication (UKTC) Awards are part of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC) Professional Development and Recognition Program. The purpose of the awards is the recognize the value of clear, concise and effective information products. The ISTC is the largest UK body representing information development professionals.
