Michelle Bacigalupi, Guidewire Software
October 15, 2025
Introduction
This article traces the evolution of the Guidewire documentation site from a traditional site for technical documentation to an ecosystem of information experiences. We’ll delve into the pivotal moments, challenges, and successes that have shaped this journey, culminating in the establishment of a dedicated Content Experience Design (CXD) team and a vision for the future.
Focus of this article:
- Starting point: A brief history of the successful evolution of the Guidewire technical documentation site, highlighting its transformation from conventional documentation to dynamic information experiences.
- Starting small: The initial introduction of visual and interactive design elements, outlining early successes and challenges.
- Building a small CXD team: The strategic hiring of a visual designer and the cultivation of a collaborative environment with colleagues.
- Accomplishments: A detailed look at key successes and areas identified for improvement.
- Vision for what is next: Our forward-looking strategy, including the integration of artificial intelligence and continued cross-team synergy.
- Lessons learned: Key takeaways and best practices derived from our journey.
Our starting point
How might we create awesome information experiences, which include text and multimedia, to accelerate learning and enable our end users to complete their Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)* quickly and accurately?
Our journey has been nothing short of extraordinary. Three years ago, we embarked on a transformative path, driven by a core principle: “How might we create awesome information experiences, which include text and multimedia, to accelerate learning and enable our end users to complete their Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)* quickly and accurately?” This guiding statement fueled our efforts across both the Information Experience (IX) and Learning Experience (LX) teams.
*Definition of JTBD: Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) is a framework that focuses on the underlying goal or problem an end user is trying to solve, rather than just the product features.
First steps
We began with a focused, iterative approach, starting small with a few key projects that quickly gained momentum. One of our first initiatives involved redesigning the hero section of our documentation site. The aim was to establish a consistent design and content structure across all documentation landing pages. Hero elements are crucial for brand recognition, particularly for Guidewire product documentation. Beyond aesthetics, consistency in this prominent visual area significantly improves the user experience by reducing cognitive overhead and preventing confusion. Users can immediately recognize they are in the correct place, fostering a sense of familiarity and trust.
Landing page hero which shows across all landing pages
Another significant effort was the development of consistent product area landing pages. Informed by extensive user research, these pages were designed to help end users build a strong mental model, simplifying search and navigation. We implemented a hub-and-spoke model, where central landing pages guide users to more detailed articles, enabling them to learn a predictable information hierarchy and visual language. This consistency not only builds user trust by aligning content with visuals but also allows users to focus on the information itself rather than expending effort to understand the structure of each new page.
Componentized landing page
Feedback from our end-user research underscored the need for these improvements. Users highlighted that:
- “…the site could be improved by organizing information more intuitively, making content clearer and more comprehensive…”
- “To enhance user experience, …improve the site’s organization and accessibility…by categorizing information based on jobs-to-be-done…”
To evaluate the effectiveness of this new approach, we conducted several surveys across multiple product area landing pages. Our objective was to validate that these redesigned pages enhance the end user’s experience. The results confirmed our approach, as the new product area landing pages consistently averaged high scores.
Survey data:
The primary poll question asked users to rate their agreement with the following statement using a 5-point Likert scale (from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”):
“The layout on this page makes it easy to find the information I need.”
Results of usability research of landing pages
These results strongly supported our hypothesis that creating consistency across all efforts— particularly by organizing content around JTBD, the core tasks and problems our users need to solve—significantly improved usability.
Growing our CXD practice
As our design efforts expanded, so did the imperative for additional specialized skills to seize emerging opportunities and address new challenges. A key objective was to develop comprehensive standards and guidelines for our work and accelerate their adoption across various teams. By strategically hiring a visual interaction designer and fostering a culture of collaboration among our existing colleagues, we significantly extended our reach and capabilities. This synergistic approach led to the development of multiple Figma libraries, which are now shared across the Information Experience team and the Learning Experience team. These shared resources have been instrumental in furthering our goals of consistency and efficiency across numerous projects.
Figma libraries
Measuring success
Through a combination of thoughtful initial efforts and the strategic addition of specialized contributors, we have achieved remarkable progress over the past eighteen months. Our technical documentation site has been significantly enhanced with improved consistency, notably through:
- Product landing pages: Organized by JTBD within a hub-and-spoke model.
- Defined design system elements: Established typography, color styles, iconography, and standardized diagrams.
- Redesigned search user interface: A critical improvement to information retrieval.
A recent usability walkthrough demonstrated the positive impact of these changes on information discovery time. The study found a 17.34% improvement in time efficiency, meaning end users had a significant reduction in time to find the information they needed.
Overall, the success rate for information discovery reached an impressive 89.29%.
The time to find information improved by 17.34%
Lessons Learned
Building a content design practice is an iterative process of continuous improvement. For anyone looking to establish a similar practice, here are the key principles that guided our progress:
- Set growth goals: Annually assess the team’s objectives and the design resources required to achieve them. For us, this meant expanding the CXD team and inviting other colleagues to become co-collaborators.
- Start small: Begin with manageable, focused projects to gain initial insights and build momentum. This iterative approach allows for continuous development and refinement based on early outcomes and feedback.
- Quick 360s and conversations with internal stakeholders: Prioritize rapid, comprehensive feedback loops and engage in direct, open communication with internal stakeholders. This ensures alignment, gathers diverse perspectives, and facilitates agile adjustments to strategies and execution.
- Design and develop: Use the collected requirements, incorporate the research, and start designing. Iterate quickly and share with internal stakeholders. We built out design components, which made handoff to development more seamless:
- This last process took some time, and was not without a few bumps
- We found the more we leveraged reusable components and set standards for the different elements, the easier it became for our development team.
- Evaluate: Sometimes we do user research with walk-through prototypes as a great way to iterate. Other times, we do Pendo surveys or walk-throughs with the live site. It depends on the nature of the project and the resources available.
What’s next
Our future focus is squarely on leveraging artificial intelligence to further enhance content creation across various initiatives. We are actively exploring innovative interactive elements, diverse content types, and refined structural formats, all with the aim of significantly reducing the time required for information discovery and comprehension. A critical ongoing initiative is the cultivation of robust cross-team synergies, empowering our colleagues to achieve their objectives with increased accuracy and efficiency. We will continue to meticulously develop and disseminate standards and guidelines to accelerate adoption across both the Information Experience and Learning Experience teams, ensuring a cohesive and continuously improving information ecosystem.