planning-platformos-documentation-site.liquid

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metadata:
  title: FINISHED Planning of the platformOS Documentation Site
  description:  Planning of the platformOS documentation site with the Design Thinking method
---

### Date
January - April 2018

### Goal
To fulfill the strategic role our documentation plays in the adoption and use of platformOS, we approached the development of our docs with a mindset that ensures that:

* Our community gets the most out of our documentation as early as possible.
* We receive feedback as soon as possible.
* We never lose sight of our long-term goals.

### Method
We used the user-centered, solution-based [Design Thinking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking) method. We seek to **understand users**, **challenge assumptions**, **redefine problems**, and c**reate innovative solutions to prototype and test**. This process reframes these problems in human-centric ways and allows designers to focus on what’s most important for users. The method consists of 5 phases— Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. 

### Results
At the start, we explored our audience, our documentation needs, and identified both existing and missing content through in-depth interviews and workshops. In Design Thinking terms, this was the **Empathize** phase. Then, we defined personas and our Content Inventory (**Define**) and shared our ideas for content and features through a Card Sorting exercise (**Ideate**). Based on our findings, we created a sitemap and prioritized content needs. Layouts, wireframes, and content production (**Prototype and Test**) started based on the results of our discovery phase.

Read more about the process in our four-part article series: [Building Our Documentation Site on platformOS](https://www.platformos.com/blog/post/building-our-documentation-site-on-platformos-part-1-information-architecture)