Content Analysis: The Hows and Whys to Understanding Your Content

Content Analysis: The Hows & Whys to Understanding Your Content Chiara Fox EuroIA 26 September 2008 1

Context Users IA Content 2

What Is Content? Anything that can be structured or described. Words Features Images Services Video Physical items Tools or applications Signage 3

What Is “Content Analysis”? 4

It’s About Patterns 5

And Relationships 6

Why Do a Content Analysis? You have to know what you have before you start doing something with it. To better serve your customers. 7

What Are the Parts? Content analysis involves a series of deliverables. Content Inventory Content Audit Content Map 8

The Content Inventory 9

The Content Inventory A content inventory is a detailed, meticulous accounting of all items on the site. 10

Data to Capture in a Content Inventory Content owner Person responsible for migration/updating page Freeze status ROT status Current location in site New location in site New file names/URL changes 11

Example of a Content Inventory 12

What About Huge Sites? Rely on your databases Use search engine spiders and other crawlers Use a database, not spreadsheets 13

Content Inventory Purpose Used during a site migration. To estimate time and bodies needed for migration. To keep track if each and every little bit of content. 14

The Content Audit 15

How Big of a Sample To Take? Determine amount of time for audit Spend about 3 minutes per item Plan on 2 passes over each item Divide that by the number of items on the site Gives you the number of items to look at. It doesn’t take a lot of content to get a good feel for what is on the site. 17

How to Record Sampled Items 18

Example of a Content Audit 21

Example of a Content Audit, II 23

Feature Audit Example Page Title Function Type Required for Page Name Payday Location in Required for Process Tax Payment 24

Content Audit Purpose Get a sampling or flavor of a site. Figure out what you have so you can reorganize it. Usually you don’t need to do a full inventory. 25

The Content Map 26

Map Your Content Audit 27

So What Gets Mapped? Start with the spreadsheet Not formats (e.g., html, pdf, jpg) Generalize the pages by identifying the content types, objects or genres that you have 28

You Know What You’ll Get When You Click... Press releases Product overview Contact info Video tutorial Case studies Shopping cart 29

Identifying a Content Genre Does it use a specific template? Are there lots of items like this, with just differences in subject matter? Can it stand alone, without context? Is there a specific purpose? Or use? What expectations will people bring to it? 30

Genre? Or Instantiation? 31

Subject-Based Content Map 32

Feature Map Example Example Feature Map 35

Content Map Purpose Listing of all content genres on the site. For communicating with executives or other team members. Gain insights from graphical representation of the content. Needed to build mental model diagram. 37

Who Should Do the Content Analysis? 38

The Content Audit Personality Close attention to detail Deep understanding of & comfortable with the web Understanding of the project & how the content audit will be used Ability to think abstractly A member of the core web team 39

You Can Always Help Others 40

Successful Mentoring Location doesn’t matter; touch points do Lots of examples Keep work in context Work together to “dial in” granularity 41

Be Prepared If Things Don’t Go Well Close enough is often good enough. The map is often more important than the spreadsheet. This is hard work – be understanding and supportive. More than just clicking links. 42

So Remember... Content Inventory When you are doing a migration and have to account for every item Content Audit When you need a sampling in order to inform designs Content Map A visualization of the content genres 43

Thank You! Chiara Fox chiara@adaptivepath.com Join me & others from Adaptive Path at UX Intensive Copenhagen October 13-16 Register with code “FOCF” to save 15%! 44

Photo Credits By Akiyoshi Kitaoka http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/ ~akitaoka/index-e.html By Orangeacid http://www.flickr.com/photos/ orangeacid/353267143/ By Edwards Hicks http://www.allposters.com/- sp/Noah-s-Ark-Posters_i128976_.htm By Georges-Pierre Seurat, La Parade (1889) 45

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Content Analysis: The Hows and Whys to Understanding Your Content

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