A seminar and workshop for city government content creators

1. A workshop presented by
Carol
Barnum, Ph.D.
Director,
User Research

2. Me About me
• Director, User Research
• Professor
Emeritus, Southern
Polytechnic
• Author, 6 books, 50+
articles
• Trainer, content
strategy, UX, technical &
professional
writing, global
strategies

3. For the next 2 hours . . .

4. • Learn strategies for writing customer-focused
content
• Use these strategies with current content
• Apply strategies to create content that is:
– User friendly
– Efficient
– Goal-oriented
– Useful, usable, desirable
Our goals

5. • Focus on your user
• Engage in conversation with your user
• Design structure for conversation
• Transform content to conversation
Our agenda – first hour

6. Who is your user?

7. City of Atlanta Innovation
Delivery Team

10. • It starts with your site visitor
• Users want to grab and go
• Many sites are "virtual file cabinets"
"Rummage around because we assume
you are looking for documents"
Content = Conversation

11. Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt

12. • Understand conversations your visitors want
to have
• Engage in the conversation to keep them
interested
• Meet their goal . . . and yours
To create great web content . . .

13. Your site visitor =
the other side of
the conversation
Your site = you
one side of the
conversation
What’s the conversation?

14. City of Atlanta Innovation
Delivery Team
What’s the problem
with this form?

15. I am writing this content so that ____________
(who?)
can ________________ (what?).
Start with your purpose

16. • Experience, expertise
• Key phrases/quotes
• Emotions
• Values
• Technology
• Social and cultural environment, language
• Demographics
Things to think about "who"

17. What’s the
conversation?

18. Follow these guidelines
– Create consistent patterns
– Align elements on a grid
– Keep active space in your content
– Beware of false bottoms
– Don’t let headings float
– Don’t center text
Think of space as a design element

19. • Think about your user’s questions
• Answer your user’s questions
• Break text into short sections
• Use clear headings
• Start with your key message
• Write short sentences and paragraphs
• Use lists and tables
• Write meaningful links
Apply these writing strategies

20. • Part 1 – 30 minutes – writing teams form
– Business and Residents tabs
– Checklist of strategies to redesign content
• Part 2 – 30 minutes – teams present results
– Share strategies for redesign
– Review commonalities
Our agenda – Workshop

21. Two books tell you more
The key resource for this workshop! When you’re ready to test the content

22. • Contact carolbarnum@uxfirm.com
• Visit our website www.uxfirm.com
For more conversation. . .