cloud.gov (Fearless)

Delivering language updates, content modernization, and UX-friendly guidelines for consistent tech team documentation and diagrams

At a glance

My roles

Content designer and technical writer

Summary

cloud.gov is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) developed and maintained by the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS) unit. Its purpose is to help U.S. federal agencies develop, deploy, and scale services in a secure cloud environment.

Collaborated with

Product Managers (1)
Software Developers (3+)
Site Reliability Engineers (1)

Duration

Apr 2024 to Aug 2024 (5 months)

Highlights

Complex technical ecosystems translated into usable, accessible documentation
Scalable frameworks established for IA and taxonomy
GenAI leverage for knowledge management and work flow efficiency

Impact

GenAI prompt engineering accelerated definition creation and reduced manual documentation time by 50% (200+ entries completed in half the projected timeline).

Problems

Documentation was fragmented, overly technical, and not accessible to all users
No scalable taxonomy to act as a reference point for our 200+ terms and concepts
Diagrams were not accessibility compliant or user-friendly
No long term plans for governance of documentation and IA standards after contract end

Solutions and process

Created and maintained clear, actionable guides for deploying and managing applications, including step-by-step tutorials for setting up environments, configuring services, and troubleshooting issues
Developed a comprehensive taxonomy and data dictionary using GenAI-assisted prompt engineering
Helped the team rebuild diagrams with accessibility compliance and user comprehension as priorities
Delivered sustainable frameworks for Fearless and cloud.gov teams to maintain content long-term

Release strategy

Legacy documentation review

While the legacy documentation pertaining to our release strategy had a lot of useful information, it lacked a cohesive structure and had several knowledge and usability gaps.

Additionally, plain language standards and accessibility standards were not up to par.

Too wordy; confusing jargon

No H1>H2>H3 structure

V2 and V3 drafts noting language inconsistencies and knowledge gaps

Collaboration workflows

Over the course of several weeks, I worked closely with devs, engineers, cloud.gov SMEs, and product owners to ensure the document:

Included all necessary sections to define new code, explain our strict security/compliance controls, and documented deployment processes
Was written in a tone that was appropriate for our intended audience (cloud.gov engineers, compliance leads, technical content writers)
Used language familiar to our intended audience
Was structured for scannability and navigability
Ensured accessibility by making sure all headings followed a logical hierarchy (H1>H2>H3)
Was comprehensive via consistent feedback and usability testing on behalf of our devs and engineers
Was maintainable via use of modular content that could be updated independently once handed off to cloud.gov’s team

Changes between versions—we had 4 in total

Final artifacts

The result was an efficient, clear, adoption-friendly, and compliant document that was accepted by and integrated into cloud.gov’s release plans.

Creating a data dictionary

Purpose

We were dealing with a lot of technical terms that spanned more than one internal platform and team. As such, I created a taxonomy to act as a reference point for all terms used throughout our diagrams and documents.

The purpose was ultimately to standardize language and provide plain language definitions of ARP Security terms.

Grammar and formatting

It was important to distinguish between common and proper nouns to ensure correct capitalization and spelling. We were dealing with a lot of terms that were standard within engineering (ie, “App container”) and others that were branded services using the same name (ie, “AppContainer).

Prompt engineering

I had 200+ terms to define, and our devs, engineers and cloud.gov SMEs were busy people.

To increase the efficiency of my own work flow, and to save us all some time, I leveraged prompt engineering with GenAI to produce consistent definitions for all terms.

Style guide

Ensuring content consistency and accessibility

Once my contract was winding down, I provided the team with a style guide to ensure the standards I’d put into place were maintained in the interim.

This guide included:

Language, grammar, and naming conventions
Accessibility-compliant diagrams
508 compliance best practices