Presentation to UXPA Connecticut in Sept 2015. Presentation is an overview of content strategy and how it relates and intersects with user experience.

1. Content Strategy
UX’s New BFF!
Copyright © 2015
(Re use not permitted without written permission of author)
Christopher S. LaRoche
September 24, 2015

2. • What the hell is content strategy?
• Do I need to care about content
strategy?
• How the hell does this relate to UX?
Content Strategy - Why

3. • Broadly speaking, Content Strategy is
the concept of having all organizational
content (marketing, support
documentation, editorial, customer
support documentation, technical
communication, etc.) delivered to
audiences in a consistent, clear, and
efficient manner.
Content Strategy - Why

4. Content Strategy - Why
• Content Strategy was originally focused
on marketing content and specifically on
using social media in a consistent and
clear manner.
• As this concept gains traction within
organizations and especially at the higher
management level, the scope and concept
is expanding.

5. Content Strategy - Why
• Some of the building blocks of Content
Strategy are a natural outgrowth of how we
create content on the Web – it must be a
much more streamlined and focused how
we present information (described well in
Redish’s Letting Go of the Words book).

6. Content Strategy - Why
• To help Content Strategy succeed, often
documentation has become ‘single sourced’
with t he help and use of Content
Management Systems (CMS).
• With content located in one location,
streamlining and presenting a consistent
message and information stream is viewed as
easier, thought it is rarely that simple!

7. Content Strategy - Why
• There is an increasing expectation of a
solid (and improved) user experience!
• Streamlining content is common (and
often demanded!)

8. Content Strategy - Why
Content focus must be on
customer needs, not
organizational structure
and silos!

9. Content Strategy - Why

10. • Defining key messaging that aligns with
business goals and user needs
• Identifying what content and types are
needed
• Defining the content delivery process
(workflow)
What is Web content strategy?

11. Many organizations have no
Content Strategy
• Result: Difficult to find information or
transact
• Content is:
– Hidden
– Confusing
– Inconsistent
– Incomplete
– Irrelevant
– Out of date

12. Goals of content strategy
•Provide organization and structure to content.

13. Why does content strategy matter?
•Focuses the team on quality content
•Improves find ability of relevant content
•Meets customer/user content needs
•Strengthens organization’s image/brand

14. Define Key Messaging: Business
Goals
• What does the business hope to achieve –
their goals?
• Why will these changes achieve the goals?
• Marketing or product teams will be your
primary source
• Try to state in measurable terms

15. Define Key Messaging: Business
Goals
• Functional groups within the organization
may have different and conflicting goals
• Conduct stakeholder interviews

16. Define Key Messaging: Audience
• Who are the primary user group(s)
– Work with marketing team to understand
audiences
– You can’t serve every user group well!
– Focus on primary audience groups
• User Experience activities and methods
are critical:
– User interviews
– Ethnographic studies
– Persona creation

17. Content Strategy – Bridge Gaps
• Content strategists
often reconcile the gap
between the business
goals and the user
needs, and aligns them
so both goals and needs
are met

18. Content Strategy – Bridge Gaps
• Content strategists
also consider
technology
capabilities and
limitations
• They bring these
three areas together
to provide the
optimal user or
customer experience

19. Identifying content needed
• What do users need to:
– Make a decision?
– Understand a concept?
– Be informed?
– Meet their needs?
• What content types best suit their needs?

20. Identifying content types needed
• Content types include text, photos, videos,
audio, documents, social media, etc.
• What types best suit users’needs? Consider:
– Your sites subject matter
– Audience demographics
– Device(s)
– Technology
– Accessibility

21. Stakeholders may include …
• Senior executive or sponsor
• Marketing
• Business owner
• Writer and editor
• User Experience designer

22. Identifying benchmarks
• Benchmarks help you determine the
success of your content effort
• Benchmarks should be measurable to
indicate contribution to an organization’s
goals, such as ROI: Return on Investment
• Measurable benchmarks also increase
value and credibility of activity/role/team

23. Identifying benchmarks: Examples
• Web Analytics are the easiest way to
measure success:
– Increase in transactions
– Increase in goal completion
– Site visit time
– Page views
– Time page
– Number of visits per user
– Number of pages visited

24. Identifying benchmarks: Examples
These metrics may include an increase or
decrease.
For example, fewer page view and higher transaction rate indicates
a streamlined experience

25. Maintaining content: Governance
• Establishing content guidelines for your web
site.
– Ownership and decision-making
– Style guide. Examples: Tone, grammar,
terminology.
– Templates. Example: Product page
– Content types
– Publishing cycle
– Archiving content

26. But I'm one person without
experience!
• “Most of all, don’t be afraid to ‘fake it til you
make it.’ You don't need to be an expert in
content strategy to dive in and start getting
things done.” (Halvorson and Rach, p. 12)

27. Conclusion
• “…to sum up the mandate of a content
strategy in a single phrase, it would be this:
understand the gap between your user
experience and your customers' needs, and
fix it.”
Rahel Bailie and Noz Urbina. “CS for Decision Makers”.
http://contentstrategyfordecisionmakers.com/the-book/

28. Conclusion
Questions?
•Slides posted by the end of the weekend:
http://www.slideshare.net/silvaire65

29. Bloomstein, Margot. (2012). Content Strategy at Work: Real-world Stories to
Strengthen Every Interactive Project. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Morgan Kaufmann.
Halvorson, Kristina & Melissa Rach. (2012). Content Strategy for the Web,
Second Edition. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Kissane, Erin. (2011). The Elements of Content Strategy (A Book Apart No. 3).
New York, NY: A Book Apart.
Kuniavsky, Mike. (2003). Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide
to User Research. San Francisco, California: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.
Leibtag, Ahava (2014). The Digital Crown: Wining at Content on the Web. Amsterdam,
Netherlands: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufman.
McGrane, Karen. (2012). Content Strategy for Mobile (A Book Apart No. 8). New York,
NY: A Book Apart.
Morville, Peter & Louis Rosenfeld. (2006). Information Architecture for the World
Wide
Web – Third Edition. Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Bibliography

30.  Structured Content is Like Your Closet
(http://www.contentrules.com/blog/structured-content-is-like-your-closet/)
 A Brief History of Content Strategy
(http://firehead.net/2013/06/a-brief-history-of-content-strategy/)
 Web Writing Style Guide (http://www.hampshire.edu/web-writing-style-guide.htm)
 Writing for the Web (http://ucm.rutgers.edu/web-ecommunications/web-writing)
 Web Style Guide – Third Edition (http://webstyleguide.com/)
 User-centric vs. Maker-centric Language (
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-centric-language/)
 Strategy is coherent, unified, and understood
(http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/strategy-coherent-unified-and-understood)
 Empathy and Content Strategy: on Teaching, Listening, and Affecting Change
(http://eatingelephant.com/2012/10/empathy/)
 Content Strategy and UX (http://www.slideshare.net/olivierrenard/content-strategy-ux)
Bibliography

31.  Intranet information Architecture (IA)
(http://www.nngroup.com/articles/intranet-information-architecture-ia)
 Top 3 IA Questions about Navigational Menus (http
://www.nngroup.com/articles/ia-questions-navigation-menus/)
 Content Templates to the Rescue (http://alistapart.com/article/content-templates-to-the-rescue)
 Content is all the Matters on the Web (http://sixrevisions.com/content-strategy/content/)
 Why Big Content is Worth the Risk (http://moz.com/blog/why-big-content-is-worth-the-risk)
 Interview with Content Strategy author Ann Rockley
(http://wordspicturesweb.com/2013/05/22/ann-rockley-interview-content/)
 Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content
(http://www.uie.com/articles/folksonomies)
 Developing and Creatively Leveraging Hierarchical Metadata and Taxonomy
(http://boxesandarrows.com/developing-and-creatively-leveraging-hierarchical-metadata-and-ta
)
Bibliography

32.  Managing Content in the Manner it Deserves
(http://intentionaldesign.ca/2014/02/17/managing-content-in-the-manner-it-deserves/)
 Training the CMS (http://alistapart.com/article/training-the-cms)
 5 Key Tips for a Successful Social Media Content Strategy
(http://mashable.com/2011/01/10/social-content-strategy/)
 26 Tips to Create a Strong Social Media Content Strategy
(http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-to-create-a-strong-social-media-content
-strategy/)
 Icelanders turn in first draft of crowd sourced constitution
(http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-08/01/iceland-constitution)
 Content Strategy – in 3D! (http://boxesandarrows.com/content-strategy-in-3d/)
 Responsive Design is a poor man’s Content Strategy
(http://www.roodlicht.com/responsive-design-is-a-poor-mans-content-strategy/3175?lang=en)
Bibliography

33.  Content Strategist as a Digital Curator
(http://alistapart.com/article/content-strategist-as-digital-curator)
 Content Re-Framing: A digital disruption survival guide
(http://informaat.com/blog/content-re-framing-a-digital-disruption-survival-kit.php)
 The ‘Governance’ Component of Content Strategy Success
(http://blog.siteimprove.co.uk/the-governance-component-of-content-strategy-success)
 Orchestrated Content: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach
(http://scattergather.razorfish.com/1199/2012/10/26/orchestrated-content-a-cross
-disciplinary-approach/)
 Taking your seat at the strategy table; Three must have leadership skills
(http://uxpamagazine.org/taking-your-seat-at-the-strategy-table/)
 A look at the past, present, and future of Content Strategy with Karen McGrane
(http://csforum2013.com/?p=1808)
Bibliography