Content Strategy in Action: Taming a 5,000 Page Franken-site
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Learn how a band of fearless library professionals are ripping the guts out of their website using content strategy. When we started this project in early 2014, the University of Arizona Libraries website was a monster—5,000 unwieldy web pages of outdated, irrelevant, and unfriendly content. After sorting through all of the squishy entrails captured in our content audit, we left the lab to learn about our users and stakeholders—their needs, expectations, and priorities. With data in hand, we decided what content to kill and bury, what could be resurrected, and how to focus our content efforts going forward. We are now working with a dozen content managers to revamp the web pages they hold dear and make our content more human. To keep the beast at bay, we are creating a system of workflows, standards, and accountability and giving our managers the training and tools they need to be successful. Presented by Rebecca Blakiston and Shoshana Mayden at edUi 2014 in Richmond, Virginia, September 30th.
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Content Strategy in Action: Taming a 5,000 Page Franken-site
- 1. Content Strategy in Action Taming a 5,000 Page Franken-site Rebecca Blakiston User Experience Librarian Shoshana Mayden Web Content Strategist #edui_frankensite University of Arizona Libraries September 30, 2014
- 2. Rebecca Blakiston @blakistonr UX librarian Instructional designer Facilitator Project manager Mad user researcher Aspiring ethnographer Yogi
- 3. Shoshana Mayden @shosh1530 Writer Editor Environmental scientist Web content strategist Spreadsheet master Yogi
- 4. Our franken-site in a nutshell
- 5. Staff directory News & events Main Drupal site Hours Feedback form Databases Tutorials Digital collections Video contest Exhibits Interlibrary loan Library resource organizer Streaming Catalog Discovery tool Collections video Guides Exception slip FAQs Meet our franken-site
- 6. Where to even begin?
- 7. Project Redux refocus rework redo revitalize rebrand rebuild rethink reenergize redesign reorganize reenvision rearchitect redefine rewrite reconsider reconnect Re-Digital User eXperience
- 8. Franken-dux!
- 9. Goals 1. Content focused 2. Accessible 3. Usable 4. Findable 5. Familiar 6. Engaging 7. Understandable 8. Credible 9. Human
- 10. Principles & Plan 1. Do user research. 2. Get stakeholder feedback. 3. Define audience and primary tasks. 4. Get a grip on our content. 5. Content first, design second. 6. Integrate franken-parts into Drupal. 7. Make it easy & fun. 8. Provide workflows & training. 9. Only create what we can maintain. 10. Take the time to do it right.
- 11. We will evaluate every piece of content. We will not migrate content.
- 12. We will rip the guts out of our franken-site.
- 13. Talking to actual users
- 14. Focus groups
- 17. Treejack
- 18. Survey
- 20. Personas The Monster Nicknames: Frankie Age: 6 months Major: Undeclared Lives: Dungeon off-campus Uses the library for: • Terrifying freshman • Quiet study space Challenges: • Tech novice • Afraid of fire
- 23. What is that? Dissecting all the parts
- 26. We have a lot of content… 20% poor usability
- 29. Next Steps 25% not relevant
- 33. RIP: We’ve buried 100 pages so far!
- 41. Content strategy
- 43. We champion student and faculty success by giving them access to the spaces, technology, collections and expertise needed for their research, teaching, studying and collaboration.
- 45. We will capture your ideas then send to all staff for a sort. helpful friendly reliable people-focused traditional unmoving fun Who we are fun
- 47. 45 staff members did our online sorting exercise now: knowledgeable friendly helpful academic customer-focused future: easy-to-use cutting-edge consistent engaging people-focused
- 48. exclusive static old school traditional quirky
- 49. funny? witty? cool? hip?
- 53. databases are specialized search tools including: • library subscriptions • trial databases • open-access
- 54. wants to see popular databases wants to find databases in ecology wants to find maps & GIS data wants to see trial databases
- 57. Next steps…
- 59. Subject Dev Liaison Team Database Lead Content Strategist Workflows
- 60. Point People
- 64. strategic planning LibGuides Summon LibAnswers new web exhibits security updates new campus branding UA Mobile 2.0 organizational restructuring
- 70. Defining scope and prioritizing based on user impact
- 71. Letting go of perfection
- 72. Questions? Rebecca Blakiston blakisto@email.arizona.edu @blakistonr Shoshana Mayden smayden@email.arizona.edu @shosh1530…….
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Start: 11:00 (Intro 7 minutes) Rebecca – welcome Today we’re going to talk about our efforts to tame our website for the University of Arizona Libraries - what we fondly call our franken-site. It’s a monster.
- Rebecca Have been the web product mgr at the UA Libraries since 2010, recently restructured and am now a librarian within our User Experience Dept. Managed website redesigns including our Special Collections website and the Center for Creative Photography
- Rebecca
- Rebecca Created a website in 1994, has been redesigned at least 3 times but never really touched the content or architecture seriously Library has 200 staff, 6 buildings, 13 content managers, and website gets 2.5 million visits a year (includes 1 million unique visitors). Icebreaker questions
- Rebecca – so many stand-alone and interconnected parts – it is a complicated, complicated beast.
- Rebecca http://www.printactivities.com/ColoringPages/Frankenstein-Coloring-Pages/Assembling-Frankenstein.html
- Rebecca - To tackle this overwhelming amount of content, we began what we names Project Redux. Initially we were calling it a website redesign, but we wanted to psychologically get away from the “design” focus because we really have a much, much broader mission. Over lunch during our project kickoff meeting, we kept talking about how we wanted to take this opportunity to not just redesign, but to rebuild, rebrand, rethink, reorganize, and reenergize the entire digital user experience. So this is how we came up with the project’s name: Redux. band of fearless library professionals: identify who is on the project (roles)
- Rebecca - Before Redux, it was more like Franken-dux – a non-integrated, complicated digital user experience with many parts, none of them quite perfect.
- Rebecca – here are the goals we established for Project Redux. Number one is the focus on content, and several other point to content as being at the forefront. Our content needs to be accessible, usable, and findable. We want there to be a familiarity. We want the content to be engaging, understandable, and credible. We also want it to be human: we want the library’s personality and identity to come through in our content. http://antiscribe.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/the-monster-in-the-graveyard.jpg
- Rebecca – here is a snapshot of some of our principles and plan of action. User research is absolutely essential to guiding our decision making, as well as stakeholder feedback: feedback gathered from library staff who use the website daily, in particular the front-line staff who access our content to help students & faculty directly. We recognized that we needed to clearly define our audience and tasks.
- Rebecca – we knew that we wanted to closely evaluate every piece of content. No stone would be left unturned. We wanted to avoid just migrating content – all content was up for discussion and review. Remember, we were Reduxing, and simply migrating poor content from the old site to the new site was not an option. http://www.halloweenmoviesontv.com/wp-content/gallery/frankenstein-1931/frankenstein-1931d.jpg
- Rebecca - In other words, we wanted to rip the guts out of our Franken-site. Sorry, Franken-site. End by 11:07
- Start: 11:07 (User Research 5 minutes) Rebecca http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/19700000/Stills-bride-of-frankenstein-19762014-1872-1442.jpg
- Rebecca Focus groups – identifying primary tasks Different audience segments, english 102, faculty, undergrads, grads Pretty easy to recruit, gave them lunch Some of what they want we already offer. Fail! E.g. databases by subject
- Rebecca Card sorting for coming up with labels, groupings, categories
- Rebecca Optimal sort Shout out to Alan from New Zealand
- Rebecca Treejack to validate information architecture – asking users to complete a task and they navigate labels within a structure, can see the paths of navigation
- Rebecca Survey – primary tasks
- Rebecca Helped us later on as we thought about finding particular types of materials – will hear more in our example of databases End 11:12
- Shoshana – Personas intro We used all of the data we gathered in our user research to create personas representing our users I’m not going to spend too long talking about this portion, but there is a great talk on persona building at 2pm today
- Start 11:12 (Personas 3 min) Shoshana – Persona details We built seven personas based on different audience segments: a freshman, two grad students, a faculty member, a community visitor, a donor, and a library staff member We based each profile on the user research incorporating quotes from users and details about their time on campus, motivations, and challenges Gave each persona personal details and backstory (work, hobbies, pets, family members, etc.) to help make our staff remember them and care about these “users” For example everyone remembers that our faculty member Renee is studying how to use dance to teach mathematics and that Brandon is sleep-deprived due his new infant at home. Presented the personas at large staff meetings, content manager trainings etc. Also looking out we can use these personas beyond the digital experience
- Rebecca – Personas in use We involved our development team in using the personas and they’ve incorporated them into their agile development process We had a mega-brainstorming session where we connected the personas to primary tasks and generated “user stories” These are simple ___ wants to ___ because _____ stories, but we are using the actually personas rather than generic student, faculty, staff stories. E.g. Emily wants to search for images; Cheyenne wants to reserve a study room We grouped them into categories (e.g study spaces, equipment lending, finding books) End by 11:15
- Start 11:15 (Content Audit/Model 8 minutes) Shoshana: Content audit intro Before we could rebuild the site we needed to inventory all our grisly body parts. This built on a content audit/inventory that Rebecca had done in 2011/2012 when the library was first setting up its web governance system So we started with existing content inventories for our 12 content managers - about 700 individual pages, but we knew there were many other pages/page views out there on related sites, exhibits, and from our numerous applications. How did we find stuff? Existing inventory, Siteimprove inventory, Google analytics, Drupal module that showed us all the nodes, lots of navigating (and still months later find random stuff). Black Widow?
- Shoshana - Content audit basics The earlier content inventory was primarily quantitative, metadata about what pages were out Once again we captured this basic info: Page title. URL. The assigned manager/provider (say a little about governance in place) We assigned each page an ID # to help us keep track of where it was situated in the our information architecture. For example all of these pages start with 3.1 because they are part of the section on Finding stuff. We also captured new quantitative info about what formats the page included (text, links, images, video, forms) and categorized potential structured content.
- Shoshana – content audit expanded We added some qualitative information to evaluate our content. Who is the audience? We tracked whether it related to the primary tasks and audience segments we defined in our user research (more on this in a bit) Is the content usable? We rated this on a scale of 1-3 (3 being bad), included things like understandability, editorial standards, findability Is it the content relevant? Is it duplicative of other content on the site? Is it out of date? Would anyone want to read it? (link to analytics) For that last piece, we also pulled google analytic data for the previous two semester tracking page view/unique page views And yes, this took a long time. We had student help, especially for the quantitative and analytic data portions. This is an ongoing process, still working on audits for some parts of our Frankensite, course guides, subject guides tutorials
- Shoshana – Audit results, usability 20% of pages were rated as a “3” for usability (doesn’t mean the other 80% were that great either). This was due to editorial standards issues, hard to understand, formatting issues
- Shoshana – Audit results, usability We a lot of rogue content that doesn’t follow our editorial standards that help ensure usable content In this case, a content manager has used a table to create two columns of content. They add bold right and left to make things stand out, not to mention all caps The screen shot is in black and white, but they even added some clashing pastel colors here (why? I do not know) We have systems in place to try to keep this kind of stuff from happening, but it is a constant battle (plus a lot of legacy content)
- Shoshana – Audit results usability Instructions, so, so many instructions – this used to be a print hand out that was put on the website Librarians by nature want to teach our users how to find information and will expound upon it at length In our new site, we want to have more tools that are easy for our users rather than long pages of instructions far removed from the tool (e.g. scoped search boxes)
- Shoshana – Audit results, relevance 25% of our content was rated as a “3” for relevance – meaning content we think no one wants (at least in its current form). In fact less than a third of our content even relates to the primary tasks that we defined from user research. Numbers actually higher due to A to Z pages This was backed up with analytic data. 20% of our content had very little traffic (less than 100 views in 2013) and there was lot of overlap in this data between poor relevance rating and low traffic. In fact 84% had less than than 1000 views.
- Shoshana – Audit results, relevance For example, we have a lot of out of date content that is difficult to maintain In this example, you see a workaround for a shortcoming for our catalog system. In this case some film listings were created since subject terms aren’t easily findable in our catalog. There were 29 pages just for this subject alone, plus dozens and dozens more for other subjects. A lot of these are old films that have actually been removed from the library. So the pages are seriously out of date. They also are very difficult to use. Maybe that’s why this page only had 7 views last year
- Shoshana – Audit results, relevance We also have a lot of library-centric info Like this long page on library history and trivia, does anyone outside the library care? It is the kind of content that one card sorting participant put all together in one category and labeled “Stuff I’d never go to.” . But does anyone actually want to read this? It is the type of content that one card sort participant putinfo that might in a category called stuff I would never go to.
- Shoshana – Audit results, relevance The audit also brought up the question how long should content be kept on our site? Up until recently we had a feedback application that allowed our customers to submit feedback and also gave a public view to the comments and resulting library action. Useful in the short term? Yes? But do we still need to know that the rain gutters were breeding mosquitoes back in 2009? Or that this student was unhappy with a $77 fine?
- Shoshana – Audit results – Die, die, die bad content Our first content audit resulted in us deleting 200+ pages We recently buried about 100 more in this audit, with more to come. Currently working with content managers to review the audit and determine what else can be deleted
- Shoshana – Audit results – Die, die, die bad content We are burying a lot of zombie content that never seems die. This example of duplicative content is an old location map from 2009 that shows units that are no longer even part of our organization.
- Shoshana – Audit results – Die, die, die bad content We also deleted things that never should have been born in the first place!
- Shoshana – Audit results – Die, die, die bad content PDFs especially seem to never die! Like this old map We are planning to fix workflow issues around this
- Shoshana – Structured content intro We are also using the audit to: Determine the highest priority content to breathe new life into Figure out where things fit in our new information architecture Figure out how rebuild, rewire content. Structured content!
- Shoshana – Content modeling One of the first things we did to rewire our monster was a content modeling exercise involving our redesign team and all content managers Looked at the whole ecosystem of our content, put everything up on the board and drew lines of what relates to what.
- Shoshana – Content modeling We next took our work and used LucidChart to make an electronic version that we could edit and share more widley
- Shoshana - Content modeling This is a closer view. We used verbs to define the relationships between different types of content and started to capture some of the attributes relate to some pieces of content We are using the model to help inform our development work and road map as the project goes along End by 11:22
- Start 11:22 (Content strategy 5 minutes) Shoshana – Content strategy intro So once we had a pretty good handle on our existing content it was time to think about content strategy and our vison for the future Although my position as content strategist is new to the library Rebecca had already done a lot of work in this area, particularly with web governance
- Shoshana – Content Strategy Intro But in some ways our messaging is not consistent, with different parts of the site pulling in different directions Kind of like Frankie here… We need to revamp our content strategy to bring it all together. http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/literature-frankenstein-brides-ambition-goal-life_goal-bwhn239_low.jpg
- Shoshana – Content Strategy Statement Our original content strategy focused on make a usable, easy experience for users A lot has been changing on or campus (new president, strategic plan, branding) and the library is working hard to align our own strategic plans with campus This strategy statement is a work in progress but reflects how the library is a value to campus I’m working with our head of marketing and public relations to define from here key messages that we want our website, social media, donor relations etc. to reflect
- Shoshana – Voice and Tone A big part of this is figuring out how we can be more human on the site In the past the human element was purposely taken out of our site as staff was shrinking We now have new college/department liaisons and stronger campus partnerships So we want our voice and tone to reflect our friendly, professional expertise and real people http://prettyfrank.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/pretty_frank.jpg
- Shoshana – Library Identity Part of developing our content strategy has been gathering feedback on the identity of the library We did an exercise adapted from Margot Bloomstein’s Content Strategy at Work to get feedback from library staff on adjectives they’d use to describe the library now, as well as what they’d want to see in the future and what we should never be. We did this both in person with some staff and through an online card sort (OptimalSort)
- Shoshana – Library Identity We also got feedback from students and faculty We did a similar brief exercise with adjectives to describe the library with focus groups and card sorting participants We also set up some easels in the library lobby to get feedback of their ideal library
- Shoshana – Library Identity What we find out – from users we heard a lot about our physical space with a focus on accessibility and comfort (we are too dark and cold!) Right now we are seen as knowledgeable and friendly (score: that’s what we’ve been going for!) In the future there was an emphasis on being innovative, engaging and people-focused http://www.designstack.co/2014/07/facebook-hand-thumbs-up-art.html
- Shoshana – Library Identity What should we never be? That was pretty clear: NOT exclusive or traditional
- Shoshana – Library Identity On some things the verdict was split Can we be witty or cool? Not so much Funny? No. Fun? Yes. End by 11:27 http://www.netanimations.net/FrankDancesWild.gif
- Start 11:28 – Database example 7 minutes I want to take you through one specific area of our website content to show all of the elements we’ve been talking about in more detail It is called our database of database and is one of the most grisly parts of the site Case in point: this is an actual user attempting to use our DOD https://dorkforty.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/bride-scream.jpg
- Shoshana – What are databases? For those you who’ve blocked out your days doing research papers in English 101 – library databases are tools used for finding and accessing scholarly stuff like books, articles, etc. We have more than 500 of them accessible on our site both by name (A-Z list) and subject They are also frequently used in research guides – content put together by librarians to help students/faculty find info on a particular topic or course Like on Frankenstein….! as in this topic guide example from another library
- Shoshana: Databases Audit You might think the content strategy around something like databases would be pretty straightforward (or at least I did when I started the project) But as we audit what all was actually in our database application it became clear that the library has been using the tool to keep track of lots of different content: Encyclopedias and other reference resources Citation tools and productivity software Websites that might be useful to someone somewhere (e.g. scholarship websites) Individual journals and newspapers Redundant titles (abbreviations, former titles. There were 1200+ records and it was all a huge jangled mess!
- Shoshana – Databases Content Strategy So we needed some strategy and started by defining what databases are Some of our librarians are still a little nervous about not including everything but we have reassured them that there will be other tools for content that doesn’t fit this…
- Shoshana – Database User Stories We also looked to our personas and user stories to spec out what features we should include in the redesign In addition to finding databases by subject, our users wanted to see databases for particular formats, trial/new databases, and popular/recommended databases
- Shoshana – Database UI Prototyping Our Redux team came together with library stakeholders to sketch out the interface for the new design A lot of content decisions came up at this point, like what metadata should we include? We are now trying to work out more of the content requirements before we get to sketches and wireframes
- Shoshana: Database UI You can see some of these elements in our prototype we’ve built out Rebecca and I worked to remap the subject listings to better match campus units and to also be organized in to broader topics like history or business The find by format is also now evident (we had metadata about this before but not in the public view) The page highlights things like trial databases
- Shoshana – Database content But what about the database content? As I mentioned we started with a mess of 1200 records We reviewed those to take out duplicates and canceled titles Also mapped the new subjects and formats and assigned to librarians based on this Our team of subject librarians have just finished reviewing the other metadata, including writing new descriptions
- Shoshana – Database Descriptions As part of this we developed database standards for titles, descriptions, and what should be included overall For example a lot of our existing descriptions our wordy (some even much longer than what is shown here, with more detail than the user needs We asked the librarians to focus on what someone needs to decide to use the resource and to keep it short. No more than 2 sentences We’ll also be editing there work to ensure consistency.
- Shoshana – Database Wokflows A lot of people are involved with databases, so we are also trying to think about workflows for the future We assigned a database lead from the librarian team to help us define things and wrangle these providers
- Shoshana – Workflows We also sketched out the details for how new content will get added, edited, and deleted This last one is important since as we discovered in other areas of the site nothing ever seems to get deleted
- Shoshana – Database CMS – smarts We are also trying to be smart and let our CMS manage workflow steps on our site wherever possible For databases, this means the system will send alerts when humans need to take action and review things We’ll give meaningful help text wherever possible that helps guide content providers in our standards and voice/tone Content that has a defined life cycle like trial databases will automatically expire from the site For the site as a whole, we are also customizing the WYSIWYG to add features our content managers want (good spell check, integrated standards documents) and take away the things we don’t want them doing (no underline button) http://www.pinterest.com/pin/156640893263038246/ End by 11:35
- Start by 11:35 (Wrap up 5 minutes)
- Rebecca – 5 mins to wrap up Wrapping up – where we are at with implementation – 9 months in, not as far along as we’d like. We have tackled some of the biggies: created a new databases of databases within Drupal, created a new staff directory in Drupal (previously a PHP application), and new content and functionality for our technology lending content (previously just static content and didn’t address the primary task: what equipment is available now). But there is no way we are going to be ready to launch a brand new website over winter break, as originally planned. It’s a huge, complex site.
- And plus! Other distractions got in the way and took a lot of our web developers time.
- But – we have created a new incremental deployment process. So rather than a “big launch day,” we are embracing incremental deployment: going live with parts of our new franken-site as they are ready for public consumption. Here is an example – on our website we have deployed a new “megabox” for searching for library materials – launched this in conjunction with our launch of Summon, a new discovery tool, over the summer. While we aren’t yet ready to deploy our brand new database of databases, we have added the ability to search for database names, to browse subjects areas more easily, and we now feature some of our most commonly used databases on the homepage. We also have updated the descriptions of the databases that were re-written by librarians. When we have good content/functionality, we will push it out to users as soon as possible.
- We are building a new site in Drupal 7: new.library.arizona.edu, and as pieces are ready to share with the world, we will link to the new website from the existing site. Slowly but surely, the new site will take over the old site.
- We have a plan on how to sequence content and structural updates to the website – there are many interdependencies, so thinking through what to do when has been challenging but very important to make sure we don’t break the user experience. Communication with stakeholders, content managers in particular, and assigning point people for each particular piece of the Franken-site has also been important. And brown bags with the entire library staff.
- One of the great benefits of deploying in pieces, we are able to incorporate usability testing and gather feedback as we go – allowing a more iterative development and deployment process. Usability testing is incorporated into the process – everything that impacts a primary task for our audience will be tested with actual users. By having changes go live on the site, we can gather this feedback in the real environment, incorporate “give us feedback” options on the live site, and make changes based on those results.
- Shameless self-promotion
- Overwhelming amount of things – being careful to define our scope up front was important –yes, we will touch all Drupal web pages, all legacy applications integrated into the site, but we won’t touch static web exhibits, the repository, the intranet, etc. You might be overwhelmed by the amount of content you have. Prioritize based on the biggest impact for your users. In order to do this, you need to know your audience and know your content.
- Also realizing that not everything will be perfect and that’s ok. If it’s better than what we have now, let’s push it out. Don’t punish the users – they will appreciate an improvement and can make big impact on usability. Also important to stay flexibility, feel free to iterate on your own process, and be patient as things don’t go as planned.