6. says . . .
“Content strategy is the
practice of planning for
content creation, delivery,
and governance, and is a
repeatable system that
defines the entire editorial
content development
process for a website.”
12. Information architecture
“Information architecture is
really about what's not obvious.
Users don't notice the
information architecture of a site
unless it isn't working.”
- Rosenfeld and Morville, Information Architecture
for the World Wide Web
13. “Instruction for organized space”
Gathering, organizing and
presenting information to
suit your user’s needs is
analogous to designing a
building that will serve the
needs of its occupants.
From INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND THE
INFORMATION PROFESSIONS,
R. E. Wyllys, University of Texas at Austin
15. Who cares about the
geography of the system?
All you need to know is the
sequence of the stations.
16. Great Wurman IA quotes
“Most
of the word information
contains the word inform, so
I call things information only
if they inform me, not if they
are just collections of
data…
“If I
throw 140,000 words on
the floor and connect those
words with a sentence or two, we
wouldn't call that a dictionary...
The ability to find something
goes hand-in-hand with how
well it's organized.”
38. information architecture . . .
How well you organise your
information depends on how well
you know your information (i.e.
content).
If it’s not labelled well, it doesn’t
matter how you organised it, no
one will find it.
49. What comes after wireframes?
A polished, finished site - that’s
hard to change
That means the design decisions
you make in your wireframes will
directly affect the volume and
type of content you’ll be able to add
in the future
55. What to do with boxes
They work best for image-heavy
pages with minimal text
They need to be fluid
The content should dictate the
length and arrangement of the
boxes (and that’s hard to do)
60. Expanding menu guidelines:
Pack a punch: your content has to
fit in a small area, so it needs to be
succinct.
Use white space around your
content
Don’t use expanding menus as
your main navigation
65. Tips for teasers and help text
Keep it short (sound familiar?) - people
won’t read a long teaser.
Make it meaningful: all the reader needs
to know is
•What they should do (help text)
•What they’ll see on the next page
(teasers)
66. Design
You can’t design in a vacuum, the
content makes the design real
and functional (and grow-able)
70. Keywords
Often people will find your site through
a search engine.
Analytics will tell you which words
they used to find you (keywords)
71. You can’t cheat with keywords
Analytics tells you more . . .
Meaningless, jargon-y keywords won’t
do your site any good -- because people
won’t use your site once they’ve found
it
72. What does SEO mean?
Search
Engine
Optimisation
Effective SEO means relevant content
“Optimise for the searcher, not
the search engine. Focus on
your customers, not the
technology.”
- Gerry McGovern (Jan 20,
2009
73. Traffic sources
Analytics shows you the context for your
visitors: i.e. where they came from.
• Search engines
• Referring sites
• Direct traffic
All of these details help you get a
clearer picture of the humans
using your site
74. Funnels: this is a sales funnel for an
event. You can buy tickets online:
248 people start this funnel
Only 20 people check out
That sucks. We see that most people dropped out
between step 1 and step 2, so there is obviously a
problem with the first page:
76. When you pick a day, a morning and afternoon
session is automatically ticked, which may be
the reason people left the page.
Automatically
ticked
To fix it, add some help text
that says something like,
“When you select a day, you
pay for a morning and
afternoon session. If you’d
like to mix and match, give us
a call on 555-5555.”
77. Internal site search
Look at what people are searching for on
which pages.
If there’s a pattern, move that content to
where you users expect it to be.
79. Analysing content
Where are your users going?
What are your users doing?
How did your users get there?
80. Top content
Top content shows you your most popular
pages.
It also tells you:
• The bounce rate
• The percentage exit
81. Top content by title
Top content by title shows you your most popular
page titles.
The difference?
Specificity
The bounce rates are definitive proof that your page
titles and links that got them there work (or don’t).
82. Top content by section
“Content drilldown” shows you your most popular
sections.
You can use this information to tweak your information
architecture.
85. Pop quiz
The intro text on one of your pages looks like this:
Your analytics tells you
that you have a
significant traffic
coming from non-
English speaking
countries.
Would you change your
blurb text? How?
86. Pop quiz
Your analytics tells you that one of your most viewed
pages is a recipe for grilled chicken.
You know that most
people get to this page
from external search
engines, and that most
people leave the page
once they get there.
How would you fix it?
87. Analytics
Analytics shows you how people
respond to your content -- and
how they don’t. It should be a tool
that helps you constantly update
your site.
89. User testing transport websites
Last year we ran an “off the street” usability test
for World Usability Day
The theme of the day was transportation, so we
tested a series of airline, rail and public transport
sites.
90. Looking for the right word
These videos show people struggling to find a
navigation label
91. This video shows a guy struggling to find
the word ‘destinations.’ It takes him a long
time.
92. What about design?
The next test shows how too much content on a page -
the result of poor layout and content planning - can
discourage a user from reading
93. This video shows a woman saying she only
wants ‘relevant content.’ We love her.
I want less
information and I
want it to be
relevant
94. These are “quick and dirty” user
tests
All you need for your own user test:
•Impartial users (not coworkers)
•User testing software (we use Silverback)
95.
96. But there are lots of others
Remote online
user testing
Desktop software
(we use this too)
97. Most basic user testing is
linguistic, or interview-based
It’s an ‘ask and listen’ solution to problems in your
website’s design
But sometimes the interviewer has to be almost
invisible - to get the answers the user isn’t aware of
98. What about sample size?
We tested sites with over 80
people for World Usability Day
But you can get reliable results
with as few as 5 users