Overview
Informatica’s Online Help ecosystem requires users to quickly discover newly released features without friction. Previously, updates were published as long, unstructured articles that forced users to scroll through dense pages to find relevant information.
I led the content strategy, UX design, and accessibility setup for an interactive page menu that acts as a streamlined table of contents. By replacing plain text links with an interactive menu, I gave users clear visual cues for where each link leads while eliminating endless vertical scrolling. The final design maintains layout stability during global translation and ensures compliance with assistive technologies.
Problem
Informatica’s Online Help system relied on long, text-heavy pages that were difficult to navigate. By auditing the existing UI and content structure, I identified four primary friction points:
Dense, hard-to-scan text: Lengthy pages and five-line paragraphs made it difficult for users to scan for key details. Large blocks of static text dwarfed the buttons, forcing users to read everything rather than scan quickly.
Confusing click targets: Button titles were separated from their descriptive text. This created a disjointed experience where users were unsure whether to click the box, the icon, or the text block.
Broken translated layouts: Inconsistent text lengths broke the UI layout during translation. When translated into languages with longer words, text frequently overflowed containers or broke the responsive grid.
Accessibility gaps: The navigation structure lacked clear coding markers. Detached text and traditional links failed to provide clear context for screen readers navigating via the Tab key.
Previous wayfinding menu
Goals
To optimize the menu before launch, I set three core goals:
Enable instant content toggling: Build a responsive, button-driven menu that lets users switch content views instantly without forcing a full page reload or jump.
Prevent translation layout breaks: Establish strict character limits for button text so foreign language translations fit naturally without breaking the layout.
Meet accessibility standards: Achieve WCAG 2.2 AA compliance across screen readers and keyboard-only navigation.
Solution
Because technical writers would use this new button menu across our external documentation, it had to be easy to translate, write, and replicate. I created simple guidelines and templates so the team could roll it out smoothly:
Character limits for translation: I set clear length rules for button copy so the text fits cleanly and won't break the layout when translated into other languages.
Screen reader support: I wrote clear text descriptions behind the scenes so screen readers can easily read out where each button leads.
Writer templates: I built simple templates into our writing tools so other technical writers could easily create and replicate these menus without breaking the layout.
Feedback & Iteration
Through collaborative testing with Content Experience, Accessibility, and Localization teams, I refined the menu.
Switched to action-oriented buttons: I replaced passive text links with an active button array. I paired each menu option with a concise title and a benefit-driven microcopy line to help users scan faster.
Tested against long translations: I tested menu layouts against the longest predicted foreign language translations. By enforcing strict formatting rules and testing localized text blocks, I ensured buttons stayed neatly aligned regardless of word length in other languages.
An example of how the button menus look across different layouts and languages.
Outcome & Next Steps
To ensure the new menu scaled across Informatica’s documentation, I drove three long-term governance initiatives:
Created content guardrails: Established clear guidelines for component copy length, tone of voice, and accessibility patterns for future release notes.
Built XML templates & training: Created step-by-step XML templates and ran a training session at the Documentation All-Hands meeting to help technical writers adopt the new format.
Validated user impact: Worked with Product Management to review customer feedback. Customer interviews matched our design goals, showing a noticeable decrease in user time-on-task and faster self-service navigation.
