Content Analysis:
The Hows & Whys to
Understanding Your Content
Chiara Fox
EuroIA
26 September 2008
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Context Users
IA
Content
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What Is Content?
Anything that can be structured or described.
Words Features
Images Services
Video Physical items
Tools or applications Signage
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What Is “Content Analysis”?
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It’s About Patterns
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And Relationships
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Why Do a Content Analysis?
You have to know what you have
before you start doing something
with it.
To better serve your customers.
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What Are the Parts?
Content analysis involves a series of
deliverables.
Content Inventory
Content Audit
Content Map
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The Content Inventory
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The Content Inventory
A content inventory is a
detailed, meticulous
accounting of all items on
the site.
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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
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Example of a Content Inventory
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What About Huge Sites?
Rely on your databases
Use search engine spiders and other crawlers
Use a database, not spreadsheets
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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.
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The Content Audit
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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.
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How to Record Sampled Items
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Example of a Content Audit
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Example of a Content Audit, II
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Feature Audit Example
Page Title Function Type
Required for
Page Name Payday
Location in Required for
Process Tax Payment
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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.
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The Content Map
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Map Your Content Audit
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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
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You Know What You’ll
Get When You Click...
Press releases
Product overview
Contact info
Video tutorial
Case studies
Shopping cart
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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?
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Genre? Or Instantiation?
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Subject-Based Content Map
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Feature Map Example Example
Feature Map
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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.
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Who Should Do the
Content Analysis?
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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
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You Can Always Help
Others
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Successful Mentoring
Location doesn’t matter; touch points do
Lots of examples
Keep work in context
Work together to “dial in” granularity
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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.
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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
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Thank You!
Chiara Fox
chiara@adaptivepath.com
Join me & others from Adaptive Path at
UX Intensive Copenhagen
October 13-16
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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)
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