Breaking Down Silos
A Case Study of Cross-Project Knowledge Sharing in Confluence
- Abstract wireframes and conceptual designs
- Simplified process flows representing my problem-solving approach
- Generic data and placeholder content
Silos are common bump on the road towards a well-function knowledge-sharing practice.
On one of the projects I worked on this was a huge problem.
The project was part of a brand with a long history and a bright future carved out for it. However, the knowledge generated on the various projects under the brand had siloed and was difficult to find and to learn from for other projects.
Moreover, two of the projects were sharing technology and for these it was crucial that a solution that be found that would make it easy for one to stay up-to-date with what was happening on the other.
For this reason, breaking down silos was a strategic focus point with high priority.
Problem Details
On our recommendation, the brand was using Confluence as its main hub for documentation.[^1]. But Confluence unfortunately does provide an elegant solution out of the box that allows. I decided to create a landing page in the form of an overlay using JS. This would have the added benefit of allowing us to use Confluence analytics to monitor site traffic, accessible by simple using the inspection tool and display: none. In most cases, there are no simple solutions to siloing and it requires. Many
A Brand Landing Page
The first thing we decided to do was to create a landing page common to all projects under the brand. The inspiration for the design was Netflix' user selection Out of the box, Confluence doesn't
Breaking
A topbar
I designed and implemented a topbar to sit just below the standard Confluence topbar. The bar, or, rather, its HTML, CSS and JS, was created on a page hidden outside the main page tree on the relevant Confluence spaces. To make the bar visible on all pages, it was put in the header section on
The bar had a dropbown menu for every space with the addition of one for documentation help and a button with a link to a space hosting engine technology for all projects.
Under each of the dropdowns for the projects, there were links to shared features
Depending on space the user was on the user always knows which space they are on because they button that belongs to the current space is highlighted with its brand color using the :active pseudo-class.
Now while there's a considerable difference between Eames' designs and a simple design such as this, one thing that remains true nevertheless is that "the details are details. They make the product. The connections, the connections, the connections. It will in the end be these details that give the product its life". I would add that not only do the make the product, they also