Gerard Russell, Oxfam GB Content strategy seminar www.charitycomms.org.uk A renewed focus on audience needs and organisational goals helped Oxfam develop strong principles to justify and organise its web content. Gerard explained how the charity applied these principles to rationalise a site which had grown to over 20,000 pages down to a manageable and focused web property with clear objectives. Upcoming CharityComms events can be found here: http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. Content rules: engaging a
diverse audience through a
coherent content strategy
Seminar
22 January 2014
London
#CCStrategy

2. A focus on objectives
How strong principles helped define a radical new
approach to content for the Oxfam GB website
Gez Russell, Editor, Oxfam.org.uk
January 2014

3. About the site
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5 million unique visitors a year
3 main websites
Promoting wide range of ways to get involved
To a wide variety of audiences
Huge continuous internal demand
Social media, email, mobile

4. What needed fixing
• 25,000 pages!
• ‘IA creep’
• No clear philosophy – quantity over quality

5. Who? What? Why?
Page 5

6. The research
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24 hours of stakeholder interviews
600+ business requirements
User requirements gathering by survey,
focus group & contextual interview
3 days of ideation
16 weeks of designing customer journeys
and wireframing
1800 hrs of creative design & prototyping
Card sorting
Tree testing
Competitor review
Content audit
79 prototypes pages tested with 91 users
and 15 stakeholders
A multi-disciplinary team
In short:
• Business expertise
• Design expertise
• Users’ input
• Best practice
• Research
• Analytics

7. The vision
“A catalyst for change”
A richly-featured, user-orientated website
which supports Oxfam's objectives
by informing, engaging and inspiring
our UK supporters to take action.

8. The principles
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Always inspire action
Design for Persuasion
Reinforce trust
Always deliver onward journeys
Design for mobile
Ongoing evidence-based optimisation

9. The audit
92% of traffic visits
just 9% of pages

10. Establishing a framework
A new site, not a migration
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No more than 400 ‘curated’ pages
Only action-centred content (no editorial for its own sake)
Reinforce trust
Supporter and professional content separated
Use of self-archiving functionality where possible

11. Checklist for contributors
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Think content, not pages
Does it duplicate or overlap existing content?
How far does it meet the site principles?
Does it have an obvious home in the site IA?
Is it action focused?
Is it for a UK audience?

12. Page 12

13. Page 13

14. Benefits since redesign
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Retained clear user journeys
Better quality control (including processes and workflow)
More test and learn
Fewer inappropriate briefs, dealt with quicker

15. Thank you

16. About the author
Gez Russell has been the editor of the Oxfam Great Britain website since 2006,
responsible for general user experience, and the coordination and quality control
of supporter content. He also provides inhouse training on web writing, with a
special focus on mobile. Outside the day job, Gez also freelances as a copywriter
and digital content consultant.

17. Upcoming events at
CharityComms:
www.charitycomms.org.uk/events
#CCStrategy