Brief Summary: DIY Kits contain a pre-configured JDM-5X board and replacement parts containing two of our signature modifications. To use them, customers have to disassemble their OEM/Stock controllers, swap in the correct parts, and reassemble the modified controller.

The primary challenge of documenting this is an audience mismatch. Our DIY Kit is one of the only ways in the US to get access to a professionally prepared JDM-5X controller for under $200 without requiring soldering. So while we target them towards enthusiasts or hobbyist modders in our marketing, the actual audience in reality is much more broad. Succeeding at the installation is only tricky — not terribly challenging — so a wide variety of end-users feel like it's an attainable goal.

Because of this, my approach to the installation guide had to be educational in nature, targeted at an audience with little to no experience, practice, or transferable skills.

Luckily, we tend to hire technicians who are in the same situation, so I'm already used to building documentation to fit this scenario. (See Technical Manual for New Hire Training for a direct example.)

After completing the initial document version of the guide, I collaborated with our web designer on a complete redesign for our website. The online version separates the Disassembly and Installation sections more completely, places the steps into carousels, and adds the ability to choose video clips instead of relying on static images. (Visual aids done by me.)

The PDF embedded here is only an excerpt. The full PDF is available here. To see the live website version of the guide with the different information architecture and design, click here.

Summary: Contrasting with the tone of the main DIY Kit Installation Guide, this guide's primary purpose is discouragement and protection for the company. The DIY Kits are specifically intended for OEM/Stock controller upgrades. Meanwhile, customized or modded controllers can have thousands of combinations available.

Supporting all of these would be impossible, but early on, Support agents were stuck helping customers with difficult installation processes that were significantly out of scope for the business because we hadn't drawn a line. This guide offers basic instructions that will be enough for anyone skilled enough to pull them off, while setting a firm Support boundary.

Outcome: When customers reach out in advance about the possibility of using a DIY Kit on their modded controller, Support agents now have a flow of telling them it isn't officially supported, then choosing to either quote the document or provide the document. We also added firmer verbiage to the product pages and descriptions to match the guide.

The embedded PDF is the full document.

Summary: These boards offer extreme granularity over the configuration. Because of this, more casual customers are often intimidated. This guide attempts to reassure and empower those users, while also trying to correct misinformation surrounding the more advanced features.

Outcome: This project was completed recently, so we haven't had time to see the true outcome just yet. However, it's already helped internally by correcting some misconceptions among our staff, and I was able to fold some of the new visual aids into our existing internal documentation.

The JDM-5X board is a highly customizable, advanced piece of hardware that gives users extreme control over every aspect of its behavior. This is a benefit for enthusiasts, but it's a major hurdle for more casual customers who feel easily overwhelmed by the amount of power they have. We often talk to customers who are so afraid of messing up that they're unwilling to even try. And unfortunately, controller configuration is a very personal thing — there's no one-size-fits-all setup we can provide. Customers genuinely have to dive in themselves.

So, this guide attempts to do three things simultaneously:

1. Reassure and empower the users to experiment with their configuration by carefully guiding them through the process while repeatedly explaining that they can always start over if something goes wrong.

2. Explain each individual step of the basic setup process, which is confusing in its own ways, as well as each major setting available in the configuration software.

3. Carefully explain advanced calibration concepts that suffer from widespread misinformation and misunderstandings. The poor information around this topic leads to hyper-fixation on unhelpful metrics, issues with placebo effect, and endless attempts to fix things that have very minor practical impact.

The PDF embedded here is only an excerpt. The full PDF is available here. The website version of this new guide is currently in progress. If you're seeing this text, it isn't complete yet.

Summary: Our Support team compiled common questions they were seeing on Discord and social media, and I wrote the answers. 

This deliverable is fairly straightforward, but the answers follow the same pattern as the rest of the work for this project. Customers were confused or anxious about something, and I worked to clearly explain the answers in a way that promoted understanding and confidence in their purchase decision.

The embedded PDF is the full internal document I wrote to answer Support's list of questions. These entries are live on our website, but they're mixed into a longer FAQ that I wasn't fully responsible for.

The documents included above are the major work for this project. However, I also worked closely with our graphic designer on the in-box insert cards included with our JDM-5X shipments.

The most interesting of these smaller projects is a Quick Reference card version of the DIY Kit Installation Guide. The request was to fit the installation instructions onto a one-sided 5"x8" printed card, and it's important to note that this was originally requested before there were any plans for a full written guide. 

The card was going to be the only source of instructions, and needed to be complete enough to enable success, at a font size that wouldn't require a microscope.

Given that the written guide eventually wound up coming in at 17 pages, this was a significant challenge. We eventually canceled the project, opting instead for a small QR card that links to the full website version of the instructions. But, I'll attach screenshots of my original mockup, as well as the nearly-finalized version done in collaboration with our graphic designer.

The instructions themselves went through a couple of rewrites to enable the better layout and visual design showcased in his version.

Beyond this card, I contributed revisions to a few other in-box insert cards, product pages, and descriptions, but claiming a basic revision pass of someone else's copy for a portfolio would be a stretch.