These are the workshop handouts for "Why UX Design Needs Content Strategy" presented at UX Week 2010.

1. August 25, 2010
CONTENT STRATEGY EXERCISES
UX Week 2010

2. August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 2 of 19
EXERCISE 1A: USER NEEDS AND BUSINESS GOALS
User Persona
Take a look at the sample persona and scenario on the next page, and think about how
you’d communicate a list of user goals.
What does he need or expect to nd when he does his research?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

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USER PERSONA
Anthony Collins
IT Department Head
Chicago, Illinois
Anthony has spent the past 6 years working as the Head
of IT at a mid-sized marketing and advertising agency.
Anthony is responsible for purchasing and administering
all the of ce equipment—including everything from
computers, phones, servers, and photocopiers. He has a
team of people who work with him to maintain the
systems when something goes wrong.
The company is headquartered in Chicago, but has of ces in several other cities across
the US. Sometimes, project teams collaborate across of ces, which means that
employees y between the various of ce locations. Occasionally Anthony has to travel
too—he’s responsible for making sure that technology runs smoothly in every of ce.
Exciting news for the company this year is that they’re opening their rst international
of ce in Amsterdam.
Anthony’s boss, the owner and president of the company, gives him a new assignment:
“We can’t afford to keep flying people all over the country
every time there’s a meeting. Look into getting us some
kind of video conferencing system. Like that Telepresence
thing I saw on that show ‘24’.”
Anthony knows from past experience that his boss doesn’t want to be overwhelmed
with options. It’s Anthony’s job to research potential solutions and make a
recommendation.

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EXERCISE 1B: USER NEEDS AND BUSINESS GOALS
Case Study
Take a look at the sample case study on the next page, and think about how you’d
communicate a list of business goals.
What does this company expect to achieve by putting information on the web?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

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CASE STUDY
Cisco Systems, Inc.
NASDAQ: CSCO
San Jose, California
One of the world's biggest technology companies, Cisco
is an American multinational corporation that designs
and sells consumer electronics, networking and
communications technology and services.
Headquartered in California, Cisco has more than 65,000
employees and annual revenue of US$36.11 billion as of
2009.
Cisco de nes its mission as follows:
“We enable people to make powerful connections.
Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used
to create the Internet solutions that make networks
possible — providing easy access to information
anywhere, at any time.”
Industry analysts expect the expect the videoconferencing industry to generate more
than $1 billion in annual revenue in 2011, with compound annual growth rates of 17-21%
each year after. These projections take into account several market forces, including the
economic downturn, which reduces budgets for travel, and increased attention to
environmental or “green” causes.
Cisco is a leading player in developing solutions for business collaboration, including
videoconferencing. Cisco offers a wide variety of products and services at all price
points — from their high-end Telepresence suites to conferencing tools built into
mobile and desktop phones, and including their recent purchase of web-based
conferencing software provider, WebEx.

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EXERCISE 2A: CONTENT ANALYSIS
Content Inventory
Visit http://www.cisco.com and create an inventory of content related to business
collaboration and videoconferencing.
You will need to make choices about what to evaluate and how to document it:
• What data points do you need to gather (in other words, how do you set up your
spreadsheet?)
• How do you choose which pages to look at? Based on user scenarios, content types,
or other methods?
• How broad and deep do you need to go?
• Can you nd content that has been lost or hidden?
• How do you ensure you see examples of all the different content types (page types,
media types, etc.)?
• Do you track information at the page level, or at a more granular level?
A sample spreadsheet has been provided if you need help getting started.

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EXERCISE 2B: CONTENT ANALYSIS
Content Audit
Based on the content inventory you just completed, and the user needs and
business goals you completed in Exercise 1, assess the quality of this content.
You will need to make decisions about how to de ne “quality” content. Remember:
there is no overall de nition of “good content”— there’s only subjective quality within
your business and user context.
• Does the content communicate clearly?
• Is the content complete? Do you have all the content that needs to be there?
• Is the content up-to-date? Are the examples presented fresh?
• Is the tone and style appropriate for your the reader? Is it appropriate for your
brand?
• Is the content relevant to its intended audience? Are there other audiences this
content might be relevant to?
• What business purpose does the content serve? Does it help meet business goals?
How will you document your ndings? If you add to your spreadsheet, how will you track
your assessment?
Since this is a subjective exercise, how will you persuade your project team that your
assessment is valid? How will you present your ndings?

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EXERCISE 3A: MESSAGING
Messaging Architecture
Going back to your understanding of the user and the business, what are the main
points that should be communicated about this line of products?
Primary Message
One focused, memorable sentence that captures the essence of what this is and the
value it provides. Should answer what? and why? questions.
Secondary Messages
Supporting points that provide context and more speci c information, answering
additional questions like who? and how? and when? and how much?
1.
2.
3.
Call to Action
What do you want the user to think or do differently after seeing this information?

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EXERCISE 3B: MESSAGING
Content Annotations
Based on the wireframes on the next pages which show common templates, provide
direction about how to communicate your primary and secondary messages.
Imagine you are giving guidance to a copywriter, who may be a freelancer, a colleague,
or a client. If you’ve ever written annotations for wireframes, you might think of these as
annotation for content rather than interaction.
Good annotations will:
• Help the writer understand and focus on the goal of the page
• Prioritize the information presented, both in the ow of text and in the placement on
the page
• Give direction about what to say and how to say it
• Tie back to the overall messaging architecture
Great annotations will also:
• Direct the writer to appropriate source materials, both online and of ine
• Guide selection of images, videos, and data visualizations, if available
• Indicate how often each content element should be reviewed, edited, or deleted

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EXERCISE 4A: TESTING
User Interviews
In an interview setting, you can use a “think-aloud” protocol to learn how readers
process and make sense of content.
Working in pairs, select one person to be the participant and one to act as moderator.
The participant should read the whitepaper on the next page. (If this were a real test,
the participant would be recruited to match the characteristics of the intended
audience. To the extent possible, the participant should pretend to adopt the persona
of Anthony, the IT Director.)
The moderator should rst quickly read through the whitepaper. Then work off the
moderator guide that appears on page 18.

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MODERATOR GUIDE
Introduction and Setup
Introduce yourself
I’m a researcher working with Cisco Systems to help them gather feedback on some of
their products and services. I don’t work for Cisco, so I hope you feel you can be
completely honest with me. You’re not going to hurt my feelings if you don’t like
something, and you won’t make me happy if you do.
Explain the goal and process for the task
We’d like to get your feedback on a whitepaper about videoconferencing. You’ll be
asked to read the whitepaper and tell me what you think it means. One thing that I’m
going to ask you to a little differently is I’m going to ask you to “think out loud” as
you’re reading. I don’t want you to read the whitepaper to me, I want you to tell me
what you think it means or how you’re making sense of it.
Start the test
This will take about ## minutes. Do you have any questions for me before we begin?
During the Test
• You may want to provide more context for the participant, such as “Please review
this document as if you were reading it at work.”
• Remind the participant that “It is important that you say aloud everything that you
think as you’re reading this document.”
• Encourage the participant to explain images, charts, or other graphics to you.
• If the participant starts reading silently, prompt him or her with “please keep
talking”or “tell me what you’re thinking now.”
• During longer interviews, you can tell the participant that they can stop the test: “If
you were using this document at work and you reach a point where you’d quit
reading it, let me know that too.”
• Thank the participant at the end of the interview.

19. August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 19 of 19
EXERCISE 4B: SURVEY
Using the same whitepaper, write a short, task-based survey that asks about some of the
information presented in the document.
Your questions may be:
Multiple Choice
Name one reason given in this whitepaper why organizations choose to implement a
videoconferencing system:
๏ It reduces travel costs
๏ It’s more environmentally friendly
๏ It’s more secure than telephone conferencing
๏ I don’t know
Short Answer
Based on what you read in this document, what are three reasons why an organization
would choose to implement a videoconferencing system?
1.
2.
3.
" I don’t know.
Fill in the Blank
From what you read in this document, why would an organization choose to implement
a video conferencing system?