1. More Than Words
Importance of messaging hierarchy and tone of voice
DeAnn Wright
Lead Content Strategist, eBay

2. What’s included in a Content Strategy?
• What are the business objectives?
• What do the users need and want to do?
• What does the brand stand for?
• How does the content align with business
and user goals?
Content
• How will users interact with it? Strategy • What do we want to say?
• How will it be structured? • Where will we get the content?
• What will it look like? • Who will maintain the content?
Technology
• How will be build it?
* From Karen McGrane, Bond art + science:
http://www.slideshare.net/KMcGrane/why-ux-design-needs-content- • Who will maintain the technology? 2
strategy

3. Defining Hierarchy
Information hierarchy is used to:
• Communicate messages
• Illuminate actions
• Organize information
• Present data
Why is hierarchy important?
• Enable usability
• Reflect priority

4. What is a messaging hierarchy?
• The positioning of messages in a way that creates an
intuitive understanding of message importance for the
reader.
• An effective messaging hierarchy needs to map to
prioritized user and business needs
• A messaging hierarchy enables you to focus
your content on the things that matter.
4

5. Elements of a messaging hierarchy
5

6. A good messaging hierarchy helps you
create content that:
• Guides users through a sequence
• Suggests distinct choices
• Quickly communicates:
• What is this? Usefulness
• How do I use it? Usability
• Why should I care? Desirability
• Answers key questions:
• Where am I?
• What do I do now?
6

7. Having a well-thought-out messaging
hierarchy helps you decide
what content is needed, craft it,
and defend it!
7

8. Creating a messaging hierarchy in
three easy steps:
1. List out required actions and messages
2. Prioritize the list
3. Map messages and visual elements to
the page
8

9. Creating and prioritizing messages
User research
• What are the user goals and needs?
Overall content strategy
• What are your guiding principles and strategies?
• What does the content need to communicate?
Competitive analysis
• What are our competitors offering?
Content inventory and analysis
• What content do we already have?
• How do users find and use our existing content?
• What keywords are they using?
9

10. Consider your content principles and
strategies when creating a messaging
hierarchy
10

11. List and prioritize messages: Examples
eBay Bucks Messages
Primary:
It’s free
It’s easy
It has real value
We are glad you’re here and that you chose eBay
Understand how the program works
Secondary:
You don’t need to do anything other than sign up
We are not like other rewards programs you’ve
experienced (and forgotten)
We want you to win.
Understand the percentage of earn
Understand that some products are not eligible
Understand that eBay is paying for and providing this
benefit
Understand that eBay will do all the heavy lifting
Understand that it is different from other rewards
programs
We won’t spam you
11

12. Messaging Hierarchy is NOT Content!
• Your list and hierarchy should consist of
messages not content.
• Don’t spend time wordsmithing content and
getting the phrasing just right. That happens
later.
• Just focus on the high-level messages, NOT the
actual content.
12

13. Myth #1:
Place messages in order of importance

14. Myth #1:
Place messages in order of importance
What are the top 3
messages to
communicate in this list?

15. Myth #1:
Place messages in order of importance
Now, where does your
eye actually
go on the list?

16. The Truth:
The most important points should go at the
top and the bottom of a list.
(The middle of a list gets overlooked)

17. Myth #2:
Just make the important stuff bold.

18. Myth #2:
Just make the important stuff bold.
What messages
are bold here?

19. Myth #2:
Just make the important stuff bold.
And where does
your eye actually
go?

20. The Truth:
Place important messages near an image
and less important messages elsewhere.
(Work with where the eye naturally goes)

21. So. . .
• Use images & icons near messages you
want to communicate most
• Expect people not to read the middle
points in your list (or keep them to 3s)
21

22. OK, I have my list of prioritized messages.
Now what do I do with them?
1- Map messages
• Map the primary, secondary, tertiary messages to the page.
(Sketching is a great way to do this)
• Work with design to ensure that messages and visuals work well
together.
• Refine key messages (based on user research, team reviews,
etc)
2- Finalize terminology
• Create and finalize key terms, and document them (glossary)
3- Write copy
• Craft content to support your messaging hierarchy
22

23. Mapping messages
23

24. Think about visual elements
24

25. Examples
Not enough
hierarchy
25

26. Examples
Central message
and clear hierarchy
26

27. 27

28. No clear
hierarchy
28

29. No clear
hierarchy
29

30. Prioritizing content and labeling
30

31. 31

32. 32

33. Time to wrap up and
review what we’ve learned so far. . .
33

34. List and prioritize
Step 1: Define and prioritize messages with stakeholders
(Remember, messages are not final user-facing content, but high-level
messages)
eBay Bucks Messages
Primary:
It’s free
It’s easy
It has real value
We are glad you’re here and that you chose eBay
Understand how the program works
Secondary:
You don’t need to do anything other than sign up
We are not like other rewards programs you’ve experienced (and forgotten)
We want you to win.
Understand the percentage of earn
Understand that some products are not eligible
Understand that eBay is paying for and providing this benefit
Understand that eBay will do all the heavy lifting
Understand that it is different from other rewards programs
We won’t spam you
34

35. Map messages
Step 2: Map messages to page
35

36. Add visual elements
Step 3: Sketch with visual ideas for more specific message mapping
36

37. Place in framework
Step 4: Work with interaction designer to place high-level messages and
preliminary labels into framework
37

38. Add final content and visuals
Step 5: Create final content and visuals that adhere to, and enhance, your
messaging hierarchy
38

39. Map messages to a framework
1. Selling is easy and you can
make money
2. You can list anything
3. Get inspired by others and
what’s selling on eBay
4. eBay is a great place to sell
stuff
5. You can list anywhere
6. We’ve got you covered. We’re
here to help. We’ll guide you
through it

40. Add content and
visuals

41. FAQs
I want to have an effective messaging hierarchy, but every
stakeholder wants their content or feature to be
prominently displayed. What should I do?
• Separate the discussion about hierarchy from the actual design and
content.
• Create a list of potential messages and actions on the page and work
with stakeholders to prioritize it.
• Include any data you have about usage or importance of the items on
the list.
• If a stakeholder complains about the prominence of their
message/visuals, offer to revisit the priority list with all stakeholders
(those that have agreed to the prioritization).
41

42. FAQs
Most of my work involves small incremental improvement
and not a full redesign. How can I incrementally develop an
effective messaging hierarchy?
When adding a message element to an existing page consider how it
relates to the whole.
• Is it more or less important that the other messages on the page?
• Is it very similar or very different from other messages on the page?
• Does it logically fit within specific content or actions?
• How does it relate to the overall goals and vision for the page?
Document these relationships to begin building a messaging hierarchy.
Apply that messaging hierarchy each time you make incremental changes.
42

43. Voice and tone
topics are we going to cover?
What formats are we going to use? (newsletters, brochures, videos, online pages, blogs
etc.)
Why does anyone care?
does this provide business value?
How are we delivering the message?
should we say it? (tone of voice)
will we get the content?
Where can we syndicate the content? (feeds, social media, re-use in other channels)
will this be published?
When will it need to be updated?
Who is responsible for the content?
will maintain it over time?
* From Karen McGrane, Bond art + science: http://www.slideshare.net/KMcGrane/how-to-do-content-strategy
43

44. Who are we? What do we want to be known for?

45. Since consumers can shop from a variety of
brands, we need to be relevant but also
differentiated.

46. Our brand strategy is based on key areas of focus: eBay’s
emerging strategy, the changing shopping landscape, and
our customers.

47. Our new brand positioning was based on a deep
understanding of the emerging needs of general
shoppers, but with a focus on the shopping enthusiast.

48. Who is ?
Our brand personality attributes
Fun
Friendly
Human
Inspiring
Authentic
Passionate
Smart
Trustworthy

49. Our research also helped us understand how our
brand’s personality is perceived by consumers,
and how this compares to other brands

50. Sensory Branding
• Visual- What does it look like?
• Audio- How does it sound?
• Touch- How does it feel?
• Smell- How does it smell?
• Taste- How does it taste?

51. “A brand has to transform itself into a sensory
experience that goes far beyond what we see. The
way a brand sounds should never be
underestimated. It can often be the deciding factor
in a consumer’s choice. ”
-Martin Lindstrom, Brand Sense

52. What is fun?

53. What is friendly?

54. What is human?

55. Lots of questions, here’s another one:
Where to begin?
• Start with customer feedback. How do
customers perceive our brand?
• We conducted voice and tone focus groups
in the UK, NYC, and San Francisco

56. What our customers told us
Customer segment Preferred tone
US buyers Consistent, everyday, natural language
Don’t want to be told what to do – prefer friendly
guidance
UK buyers Wary of “generic politeness” as it comes across as
insincerity
eBay should apologize only when necessary
US casual sellers Positive, polite and active voice
Benefits led – but not “wacky”
US business sellers Prefer conversational, natural language
Stay away from corporate speak
UK casual sellers Professional, but not corporate speak
Everyday language
UK business sellers Dislike waffle
Want direct, to-the-point language

57. Next step, gain internal perspectives
We held “brand design dialogues” with
designers and content strategists to tease apart
what these words mean for eBay.
In these sessions, we created:
Word affinity maps
Experience captures
Mood boards

59. Fun experiences

60. Fun mood board

62. Friendly experiences

63. Friendly mood board

66. Human experiences

67. Human mood board

68. Then, we created content examples

69. Fun
69

70. Friendly
70

71. Inspiring
71

72. Fun
72

73. NOT so Smart
This is only
superficially
I clicked on a
friendly.
“live help”
link to get Does it look
here. So why like eBay
is the button wants me to
at the bottom call? Or is this
just lip
of the page
service?
under the
header “Need
more help?”
73

74. Let’s see some examples!
FUN is FUN is NOT
That page is not available, but Doug is. Error 404: Page not found
Page not found, and an engineer just lost his wings.
FRIENDLY is FRIENDLY is NOT
Here’s how it works. Don’t worry—we’ll guide you every You shouldn’t have bought an item from a seller with less
step of the way. than 100 feedback. You can only return an item if the seller
lets you.
HUMAN is HUMAN is NOT
Rats! We can’t find that page. In the meantime, here are eBay is proud to announce a new product feature for
some links that might help. sellers. eBay Selling 2.0 is designed to be the greatest selling
tool of all time.
SMART is SMART is NOT
Getting a refund is a simple. Here’s what you need to do: Are you sure you want to return this item?
1- Ship item to seller with our easy return label
2- Get money in your PayPal account
INSPIRING is INSPIRING is NOT
Want to know what’s hot for spring 2013? Let our style We have millions of items from millions of sellers, a million
director point you to the trends that everyone will be different rewards programs, and a million different ways to
wearing this season. buy. All just for you.

75. It’s all about context!

76. Creation of guidelines
How to make this global? Will we
have US, UK, and DE guidelines or
sections?
What will this be?
• A pdf? Some sort of online tool?
• Integrated with a CMS? Acrolinx?

77. Rollout, evangelize, and adopt!

78. Thank you!