The document summarizes why the author teaches content strategy. It begins by introducing the author and their background in communication strategy for nonprofits. It then discusses how the author's education and experience living in Seattle influences their work. The author views information architecture like building a city rather than just a house. They emphasize the importance of content inventory and audit in understanding what content exists on a site and its quality. The goal is to deliver relevant content to users and search engines. Inventories and audits are presented as diagnostic tools to improve structure, design, trust and people's online experiences.
Why Content Inventories and Audits Are Essential for Information Architecture
1. Why I Teach Content
Strategy
Misty Weaver
UX Johannesburg
November 14, 2012
2. Who?
Misty Weaver
Twitter @meaningmeasure
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/mistymelissaweaver
My work is all about Communication Strategy
for Nonprofit Organizations:
Community Management, Social Media Marketing, Content
Creation, Curation and Publishing, Website Management, Events
4. Instead of thinking about IA as building a house, consider building a city. Full of
traffic, business, art, design, community and people. Seattle is my city.
I, Cacophony [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Oranviri at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia
Commons
5. Seattle Public Library stands as an example of
Seattle Public Library
forward thinking, open design meant for
community use.
6. We want a little of everything, art &
architecture, style & use, design & display. The
experience music project is both fun and
functional.
7. We are a bit quirky in Seattle, art crops up
under bridges and we like to play.
www.stachesofseattle.com
8. My work is influenced by my education, the
city in which I live and what I do now with
community.
New School
9. Talking ‘bout
• Content Strategy in
Information
Architecture & User
Experience Design
Discovery Process
• Role of Content
Inventory & Audit in
the Customer Journey
11. “Useful, usable content is a
process, not a product. It needs
people who are responsible for
ongoing, editorial oversight. Set
standards to inform changes and
inspire growth.”
– From Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina
Halvorson
12. My Interpretation
• Know your organization
• Know your audience
• Know your ecosystem
• Know your limits
Build a holistic system
13. Goal: Deliver Relevant Content
My personal goal is deliver relevant content to
people (and search engines). I work up the
pyramid, developing specific tactics to carry
out strategy.
Specific
Achievable
Measurable
Findable
Useful
Usable
14. Assumption: Content Has
a Life Cycle
Create
Cut
• New Content
• Content • New Programs
• Navigation • New Navigation
• Policies • Roles, Policies, Wor
kflows
Connect Keep
•
•
Merge
In-site links (Revise)
• External Links
• Content:
• Social Media Pages, elements
• User generated • Navigation, structur
content e
• Policies • Policies
16. Is Design Content’s Nemisis?
Lorem Ipsum
Designer Luke Wroblewski argues that “using
dummy content or fake information in the Web
design process can result in products with
unrealistic assumptions and potentially serious
design flaws.” He also explains how these
designs usually fail when real content is added.
- Death to Lorem Ipsum
Karen McGrane Defends Lorem Ipsum
http://karenmcgrane.com/2010/01/10/in-
defense-of-lorem-ipsum/
Nemisis. Louvre. Marie-Lan Nguyen (2010)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_Neme
sis_Louvre_Ma4873.jpg
17. Taxonomy & Search both require us to prioritize
content and how it is displayed
18. Content Inventory What
Agenda
Quantitative
Content Strategy The Information School University of Washington
19. Content Inventory what should be
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333418/Amazon-Christmas-rush-Picture-elves-work-Swansea.html
22. The Bad News
• Click by Click
• Starting with home page
• Pay attention to sections
• Have the experience the user does
It takes a long time and can hurt your body but
you get an unparalleled experience from the
user perspective (hint: staff are usually users as
well.)
23. Are there tools for this?
• Web Crawlers
• Two Monitors
• Robots file
• Firebug
Yes! They can’t do the analysis for you but they can
collect data faster so that you can still experience
the site just without having to stop and copy/paste.
Xenu
http://siteorbiter.com/
http://content-insight.com/
24. Qualitative: What to Audit
Consistent
Cluttered
Relevant
Useful
Once you have an inventory, you usually want to then audit the value of the
content in an audit. These are general things I look for but audits should always
be specific to your context: business goals, audience needs, resources/time
available.
25. Content
Inventory
Tells you what’s below the surface.
There’s often a world of content
underground.
Inventories let you scope and adjust
timelines. Often a client thinks they
have 300 pages but they really have
3000. I use automated tools to find
the scope before I start the project
and never start an audit without full
discussion of expectations.
Termite mound close to Maun, Botswana by Discott
30. The World of Audit options is limitless… Try to connect with your user’s psychology & needs
Speaks to Intended Audience
Facilitates user tasks Recommendations
Keywords / Subject
Keep/Kill
Has Calls to Action Revise
Owner / Author
Add
Date Revised
Quality
Readability
Length
SEO Tone
Title elements Message
Meta description Navigation
H1 tags Sub Navigation
Title matches content http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brain_scan.jpg
Relevancy
Content is unique to page Use / Analytics
Title element includes keywords Value to IAI
Description element includes keywords Value to User
31. An inventory and audit
are diagnostic tools!
An inventory is not an
audit
An audit is not a
taxonomy
A taxonomy is not a
miracle cure
sidknee23
32. There is a purpose and an order
Inventory
Audit
Analysis
Decision
They aid us in structure and design that
• Saves Customer’s Time
• Builds Trust and Credibility
• Develops Authority
• Improves People’s Lives Online
33. The battle for IA has just begun
We still need to educate
• Clients
• Project managers
• Co-workers
• Users
• Students
34. Finding ways to educate
• Don’t be afraid of repeating yourself
• Carry samples
• Do it where people can see it
• Volunteer
• Mentor
• Meet Up
35. Finding people near & far
• Kerry-Anne Giloway @kerry_anne
• Rahel Bailie @rahelab
• Jonathan Colman @jcolman
• Content Insight @content_insight
• Kristina Halvorson @halvorson
• Karen McGrane @karenmcgrane
• LinkedIN, Google Groups
Instead of thinking about IA as building a house, consider building a city. Full of traffic, business, art, design, community and people. Seattle is my city.
Seattle Public Library stands as an example of forward thinking, open design meant for community use.
We want a little of both, art & architecture, style & use, design & display. The experience music project is both fun and functional.
We are a bit quirky in Seattle, art crops up under bridges and we like to play.
So my work is influenced by my education, the city in which I live and what I do now with community. Hosting IA and Content Strategy Meetups and serving on the planning committee of InfoCamp, an annual unconference for User Experience & Library professionals.
From Explain IA contest http://www.flickr.com/groups/explainia/
Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson serves as my textbook but it’s not meant to tell you how to do content strategy, more to start a conversation. It’s something you can give your boss to help him or her understand the importance of Content and Strategy.
Personally, I’m a systems organizer. My modus operandi is about knowing what we want, who it’s for, what’s around us and what are resources are. I aim to build appropriate, sustainable systems.
My personal goal is deliver relevant content to people (and search engines). I work up the pyramid, developing specific tactics to carry out strategy.
I believe that all content has a life cycle, it is born, it lives, it dies and we need to build systems that encompass this ‘circle of life’ instead of seeing content as a static object or artifact. There is no content life cycle without governance. Content Strategy itself is a process not product.
Who’s job is it to conduct a content inventory?
When we design without content, what kind of issues do we face? When we show clients designs without content, what things can go wrong?
In dealing with content, we want to make it findable and accessible. This requires structure. We can’t build or apply structure if we don’t know the content.
Speaking of jelly beans. Most website content looks like this until you have it in order. I wish this was in 3-D to convey the overwhelming tsunami of content that most projects & organizations have.
Not to mention all the other content that an organization actually generates. You’d much rather an inventory that helps you locate and deliver your content than something that looks more like a vomiting blob.
The basic inventory.
Looks like a spreadsheet.
It takes a long time and can hurt your body but you get an unparalleled experience from the user perspective (hint: staff are usually users as well.)
Yes! They can’t do the analysis for you but they can collect data faster so that you can still experience the site just without having to stop and copy/paste.
Once you have an inventory, you usually want to then audit the value of the content in an audit. These are general things I look for but audits should always be specific to your context: business goals, audience needs, resources/time available.
Overstacked, stuffed and unfindable content black holes to which no one wants to admit ownership. The doors usually come crashing down during the project, leaving you with much more to deal with than originally scoped.
I see a lot of crap. Cut it. Cut the black hatseo, the meaningless mumbo jumbo and especially things that are creepy, offensive or icky.
So many sites have no traffic, no community, no conversation. They are arid planes of content no one visits, out of date, useless and lacking life force. Time to water some content seeds.
Brainwave analysis is only available in Star Trek universe
Horror Story
This is when I tell a horror story, it’s a good one, too!