Less Content. More Strategy. (D2WC)
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Less Content. More Strategy. As presented at the Designer to Developer Workflow Conference. Kansas City, MO, 30 September 2013.
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Less Content. More Strategy. (D2WC)
- 1. Less Content. More Strategy.
- 2. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 2 Danielle Gobert Cooley danielle@dgcooley.com @dgcooley 14 years as a UX Specialist BE, Biomedical and Electrical Engineering – Vanderbilt University MS, Human Factors in InformaMon Design – Bentley University Selected Work hOp://linkedin.com/in/dgcooley
- 3. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 3
- 4. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 4
- 5. (Less) Content. (More) Strategy. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 5 Content Stress Expense Value to End User Revenue Expenses and stress increase with content. While end user value and revenue ulMmately suffer.
- 6. SO WHAT IS CONTENT STRATEGY? 6 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC
- 7. Uh-‐oh! 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 7
- 8. You probably already do it! 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 8
- 9. Aaaah. Clients. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 9 I need a wireframe. Uhhhhh… OK?
- 10. Which one? 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 10 ?
- 11. KrisMna Halvorson’s definiMon 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 11 “ “Content Strategy is the pracMce of planning for content creaMon, delivery, and governance.” -‐ KrisMna Halvorson
- 12. Rahel Bailie’s definiMon 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 12 “ “Content Strategy is the development of a repeatable process that manages content throughout the enMre content lifecycle.” And that means, from planning to creaMon to management within the CMS, to publishing, to post-‐publishing acMviMes, and back through the next iteraMon of planning, and so on.
- 13. What content are we talking about? 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 13 Graphics Audio Video Photos PDFs Blog Entries Copy Tweets hOp://www.site.com Links spacer.gif
- 14. Content creaMon • Who’s going to create it? • How omen? • What kind of content will it be? • Tone? 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 14 Don’t forget about maintenance!
- 15. Content delivery • Is this going on the website? • TwiOer? • Facebook? • Email? • Annual Report? 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 15 Technical consideraMons can be huge!
- 16. Content governance • Who reviews & approves new and updated content? • Who determines and enforces removal and archival rules? 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 16 Who gets to (has to?) say “No!” to the boss?
- 17. (LESS) CONTENT 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 17
- 18. The long neck 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 18 hOp://www.gerrymcgovern.com/
- 19. Content’s long neck 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 19
- 20. Required quadrant map 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 20 Benefit Cost Logo & Branding FAQ Culture Video Contact LeOer from the CEO It Depends J
- 21. Content is expensive 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 21 Intermediate Copywriter $51,358 Webmaster $66,169 Java Developer $80,858 Art Director (Web) $102,526 Salary.com (2011)
- 22. Signal to noise raMo 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 22 www.jolyon.co.uk
- 23. The psychology of cluOer 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 23
- 24. The psychology of cluOer 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 24 At Your House On Your Website Insecurity “I might need that someday!” “A customer might need that someday!” Keeping up with the Joneses “The neighbor has new landscaping. I need new landscaping, too!” “My compeMtor uses video. I need to use video, too!” HecMc pace of life “I’ll just put this mail here for now and deal with it later.” “I don’t have Mme to meet about that. Just check with legal before you put it up there.”
- 25. DusMn CurMs gets it 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 25 hOp://www.dusMncurMs.com/dear_american_airlines.html
- 26. AA is even starMng to get it 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 26 2011
- 27. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 27 2013
- 28. This person got it. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 28 Everything Else Enter your tracking number Track My Package Reference unknown.
- 29. GoDaddy Didn’t Get it. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 29 hOp://www.heathbrothers.com/posts/2011/04/gone-‐godaddy-‐gone/ And it cost them a (high profile) customer.
- 30. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 30 vs.
- 31. Lane Furniture.com doesn’t get it. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 31 hOp://www.lanefurniture.com/Contact-‐Us/FAQ.aspx
- 32. (MORE) STRATEGY 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 32
- 33. The most important thing 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 33 Your content is the most important thing about your website.
- 34. Let me repeat that… 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 34 Your content is the most important thing about your website.
- 35. Take care of important things 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 35 Treat your content with love. Yell at anyone who doesn’t.
- 36. Lorem Ipsum must die! 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 36 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec nunc enim, volutpat ut malesuada sit amet, aliquam eu orci. In quis mauris at enim fermentum vulputate et sed enim. Suspendisse tempor ligula et libero iaculis quis tempor erat imperdiet. Vivamus adipiscing nunc vel odio dictum tempor. Nulla mauris nibh, laoreet nec lacinia id, feugiat eu eros. Curabitur faucibus gravida lectus, sed faucibus felis mavs nec. Duis interdum placerat urna sit amet posuere. Aenean in ligula at enim convallis sagivs. Nam ac fermentum augue. Curabitur sollicitudin, lorem vel tempus malesuada, tellus quam loborMs risus, id dapibus odio leo eget orci. Morbi eu augue mi, eu porta arcu. Donec massa leo, blandit quis viverra vitae, fringilla in augue. Cras condimentum, nibh ut varius lacinia, metus quam faucibus tortor, sed posuere lacus risus in diam. Donec leo orci, fermentum vel suscipit eget, tempus in leo. Vivamus ante justo, posuere at sagivs at, consequat vel leo. VesMbulum rutrum commodo lorem, non varius nisi venenaMs nec.
- 37. Bacon Ipsum, however, is awesome. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 37 hOp://www.baconipsum.com (No! Not really!)
- 38. See also: 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 38 hOp://www.rikeripsum.com hOp://www.slipsum.com (Stop it!)
- 39. SEO 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 39 SEO is important and should be considered as part of your strategy. <Mtle> tags Link text & placement Copy volume
- 40. Video 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 40 Video is expensive, and its use should be considered very carefully. “I’d rather just read.” “Video takes too long.” 81% of users leave video if it buffers. hOp://www.tubemogul.com/research/report/99-‐Online-‐Video-‐Delivery-‐SMll-‐Nowhere-‐Near-‐TV-‐Quality
- 41. InformaMon architecture 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 41 Whatever content is included needs to be organized very well.
- 42. More content might be OK. Maybe. Some?mes. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 42
- 43. Further Reading 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 43 Erin Kissane TwiOer.com/kissane KrisMna Halvorson TwiOer.com/halvorson Karen McGrane TwiOer.com/karenmcgrane “Content Strategy “Group Content Strategy meetups in many ciMes
- 44. More from me? 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 44 Code: DCSPECIAL 12 December: How to Design IntuiMve and Usable Products Through User Research 06 March: Don’t Guess: Test! The Why, What, and How of User TesMng
- 45. Recap • You are (probably) already a content strategist. • Content is expensive. • Let go of what no longer serves you. • OpMmize what does. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 45 Less Content. More Strategy. lesscontentmorestrategy.com
- 46. 30 September 2013 @dgcooley #D2WC 46
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Do NOT tell me what happened on Breaking Bad last night!
- The Less Content.More Strategy. blog is at http://lesscontentmorestrategy.com.
- The basic premise of the idea, is that, as content increases, so does the expense associated with planning, architecting, creating, delivering, maintaining, governing, and archiving that content. The stress of the work teams increases as well. Yet at the same time, value to the end user and revenue decline. If we’re going to choose to take on that increasing expense and stress, shouldn’t it be for something that *increases* value to the end user and conversion/revenue/profit?
- Gerry McGovern, a UK-based consultant, talks about The Long Neck. This is a variation of the Pareto Principle, also known as “the 80/20 rule.” He talks about it in reference to user tasks. , but it applies to content as well, so we’d say that 20% of your content is used 80% of the time. Except it’s really more like the Pareto Principle on steroids. A friend shared some analytics information for two of his clients:An e-commerce site had 714,716 pages and 12,125,733 pageviews.The top .01% (71 pages) got 4.4 million (more than 30%) of the page views.677,848 pages (94.8%) were viewed fewer than 25 timesSo let’s think. How much money did it cost to create those 677,848 pages? How about maintaining it? How about creating an information architecture that smoothly incorporates all of that rarely-used content? Probably WAY more than they made (or saved) the few times they were accessed.And this isn’t an outlier. The same friend shared stats for a large B2B IT software company:211,318 pages9,025,793 pageviewsTop .01% (21 pages) had 6,141,264 (68%) of the page views.205,775 pages (97.4%) of the pages had fewer than 25 views.In a world of internal corporate tools, where they don’t actually generate revenue, they are still intended to save money by increasing employee productivity. In scenarios like those above, the time saved for the 25 employees visiting those pages is far outweighed by the time spent on the content in the first place. The ROI just isn’t there.I hear numbers like these over and over again. It just isn’t worthwhile for those groups to maintain that content. (Possibly with a few exceptions, like some legal or privacy notices to limit liability.)
- But McGovern’s long neck applies to content as well. Applying the Pareto Principle, we’d say that 20% of your content is used 80% of the time, and 80% of the content is used 20% of the time. Except it’s really more like the Pareto Principle on steroids. A friend shared some analytics information for two of his clients:An e-commerce site had 714,716 pages and 12,125,733 pageviews.The top .01% (71 pages) got 4.4 million (more than 30%) of the page views.677,848 pages (94.8%) were viewed fewer than 25 timesSo let’s think. How much money did it cost to create those 677,848 pages? How about maintaining it? How about creating an information architecture that smoothly incorporates all of that rarely-used content? Probably WAY more than they made (or saved) the few times they were accessed.And this isn’t an outlier. The same friend shared stats for a large B2B IT software company:211,318 pages9,025,793 pageviewsTop .01% (21 pages) had 6,141,264 (68%) of the page views.205,775 pages (97.4%) of the pages had fewer than 25 views.In a world of internal corporate tools, where they don’t actually generate revenue, they are still intended to save money by increasing employee productivity. In scenarios like those above, the time saved for the 25 employees visiting those pages is far outweighed by the time spent on the content in the first place. The ROI just isn’t there.I hear numbers like these over and over again. It just isn’t worthwhile for those groups to maintain that content. (Possibly with a few exceptions, like some legal or privacy notices to limit liability.)
- So how does one determine whether content has good ROI? We can use a quadrant map.Some things are inexpensive to produce/maintain/govern, and they provide a high return. (e.g., contact information for a restaurant)Some things are inexpensive to produce, but few people really care about them. Your CEO can write a nice “welcome to our web site,” but end users don’t care about that.Some things cost more to produce and are worth that cost. Corporate branding would be one example.But some things cost a lot and provide little value. Online video is one example of this. In the end, though, where certain content falls in this map is truly dependent on the individual product, and even timeliness. When Amazon introduces a new line of Kindles, the home page features a letter from Jeff Bezos (for a day or two, anyway). If a company is in the midst of a PR nightmare, a letter from the CEO can be good PR and provide reassurance to investors. So, while it still doesn’t have much value as actual end user content, it still serves a purpose and has some value. In short, every situation is different.
- The salaries alone (not including benefits, department overhead, materials, and other associated expenses) help illustrate that content isn’t cheap. Remember that for a large site, you’ll be employing dozens of people with these job roles, buying them computers, hiring admins to support them, providing HR benefits, and allocating physical space to allow them to work. It’s often easy to just stop arguing. To say, “Fine. If that video is so important to you, put it out there. No one will watch it, and it won’t matter.” I’ve done it. I’m still tempted to do it when someone pushes for useless content for whatever personal pet reason they have. But let’s not confuse “I am tired of arguing with you” with “This makes good business sense.”
- Finally, every piece of useless content creates noise that gets in the way of people finding and using the content that’s actually useful to them. There is a case study in Philadelphia of a consultancy that reduced a client’s page count by 40% and received effusive thanks from the help desk employees for adding MORE content to the site. They hadn’t added more content, of course – they’d just removed the noise and structured the remaining content carefully so people could actually find the content they needed without having to call the help desk.
- Many of the same psychological constructs that contribute to physical hoarding also contribute to digital hoarding. In the same way that it’s a bad idea to buy a new car just because your (friend/neighbor/brother/colleague) bought a new car, it’s also a bad idea to adopt the ways of your competitors without a close look at whether it’s worthwhile for you.
- This 2009 redesign exercise shows clearly how some digital decluttering makes the experience better for end users trying to achieve their primary goal.
- AA’s 2011 redesign starts to adopt this approach.
- The 2013 redesign declutters the reservations area even more but extends the length of the page dramatically. (And the actual form fields for booking are below the fold on many screens – one should be careful not to remove the signal along with the noise).
- This is the FAQ page for LaneFurniture.com. They’re known for recliners, but they also sell every other kind of mainstream furniture as well. How likely is it that all of those questions are actually asked, frequently, by customers? Does telling people when mid-ottomans were added to recliners and motion units help them sell furniture? I contend it does not. And you and I both know that hundreds of person-hours were spent around conference tables, deciding which questions to include, how they should be answered, rephrasing the questions, rephrasing the answers, categorizing the questions, and ordering the questions. One hopes they are also maintained as service offerings change.
- When drafting a site architecture and page layouts, it’s important NOT to use filler text like LoremIpsum. It’s important to know exactly what the content is so it can be labeled properly and the right amount of page real estate can be allocated to it and arranged in the right way.
- I’d previously mentioned video as something that is expensive to produce and often provides little value. Note that we’re not talking about YouTube here, where the whole purpose of the site is to watch videos. The value provided by video is highly variable and depends on the specific situation. A demo video is probably pretty important if you are a company that other companies hire to make videos. If you’re trying to explain the beauty of no-load mutual funds, probably not so much. And, of course, there’s plenty in between. But do consider carefully whether a video is the right solution for you, because they can be very expensive to produce, present issues for SEO and accessibility, are often disliked by end users who can find information more efficiently in text or infographics, and are nearly impossible to maintain – you have to throw away the existing video and create a new one.
- Once you’ve removed all of the superfluous content that isn’t serving you, make sure you organize what’s left as clearly and intuitively as possible. This process will be MUCH easier if you are able to cut the (probably) 80-90% of your content that’s going largely unused.
- Remember: No BreakingBad spoilers!