Melinda Belcher and Robin Wellington define themselves as content experience designers. A shared vocabulary includes content strategy, which includes content design, which includes UX writing.
Content design is based on research and empathy.
What happens when content isn't included in the design process? Understand what different teams care about. Make sure other teams are set up for success with content.
If you can create a style guide and socialize it, that's helpful. It helps to start relationships. Helpful also when working with designers.OTOH, it helps to understand the systems that designers work in. We invited ourselves to design review meetings.
Make the case for clarity of content as a great way to not get sued, when legal starts getting in the way.
Showing posts with label LavaCon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LavaCon. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Building the Next Generation Tech Docs Portal
Jim Edmunds and Jerry Thorner brought a case study about how to build a unified documentation portal. A portal is an entryway. Tech doc portals need to be more than just connecting users to information.
Current generation portal tend to have monolithic content. Modern portals have modular content. Can use the latter in multiple ways for multiple purposes. They are structured and tagged.
We're seeing a proliferation of content and applications that create that content, further expanding siloing of content. We even see silos within departments.
The Internet is a hungry beast. It wants more and more content.
A unified content portal is about bridging silos. Can use existing tools and processes.
Content aggregation is about identifying and mapping all the sources of content in the enterprise.
Current generation portal tend to have monolithic content. Modern portals have modular content. Can use the latter in multiple ways for multiple purposes. They are structured and tagged.
We're seeing a proliferation of content and applications that create that content, further expanding siloing of content. We even see silos within departments.
The Internet is a hungry beast. It wants more and more content.
A unified content portal is about bridging silos. Can use existing tools and processes.
Content aggregation is about identifying and mapping all the sources of content in the enterprise.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Who Are You Talking To? Using Personas To Create Unified Content Experiences
Donna Barkson of State Farm is telling us about creating end-user personas. It's about humanizing who we're writing content for.
Personas are representations of user groups. Archetypes of customer segments--and they are not marketing personas. Based on data and research, they express user needs, define user goals, and highlight user expectations.
Personas help keep the focus on user goals. They help writers structure voice & tone.
Create personas by doing research about users, analyzing the data, and deciding what information is going to be important for them. Look for patterns in the data. How many personas you create depends not on the amount of your content or the size of the company or the number of your customers, but on what emerges from your analysis.
Use empathy mapping to learn about users. This can be used to discover customer pain points.
Things to include in personas:
From the personas, can prioritize content, avoid assumptions, create a better and persuasive content strategy, get buy-in from stakeholders.
Personas are representations of user groups. Archetypes of customer segments--and they are not marketing personas. Based on data and research, they express user needs, define user goals, and highlight user expectations.
Personas help keep the focus on user goals. They help writers structure voice & tone.
Create personas by doing research about users, analyzing the data, and deciding what information is going to be important for them. Look for patterns in the data. How many personas you create depends not on the amount of your content or the size of the company or the number of your customers, but on what emerges from your analysis.
Use empathy mapping to learn about users. This can be used to discover customer pain points.
Things to include in personas:
- Quotes
- Demographics
- Motivators
- Goals
- Frustrations
- Preferred channels
- Favorite brands
- Influencers
From the personas, can prioritize content, avoid assumptions, create a better and persuasive content strategy, get buy-in from stakeholders.
Rage Against the Machine: Overcoming the Four Main Barriers to Content Strategy Success
Noz Urbina says many of his roles have been in large, regulated industries.
4 barriers are
Today's content is multichannel. It's not only about pushing content into channels but about finding the right message for the right people. Like "omnichannel" better, a different mentality. Channels are what the customers want to do. Customers move fluently between channels. Channels can be more than the sum of their parts.
To overcome, think like a product manager. There's that "content as product" again. Use design thinking, journey maps, and holistic views.
Content is not king. It is currency. Only valuable when you can exchange content for something of value.
Don't just provide a training course. Provide a support program, the long game.
Build cross-functional standards groups. Journey-based KPIs. What does success look like in each department, and are they pulling in the same direction? Build RACI charts.
Build a content strategy for your content strategy. Messaging architecture, editorial calendar, communications cadence, etc. Write stuff down, but concisely, in easily accessible places.
Natural language processing, the right tools, and a good taxonomy can scale tagging and personalization. Proper measurement requires consistent tagging.
4 barriers are
Thinking like a publisher
Can't stand the word "publishing." Conjures old paradigm of few powerful who have the power of what's published. The model is outdated. Not how we interact with audiences today.Today's content is multichannel. It's not only about pushing content into channels but about finding the right message for the right people. Like "omnichannel" better, a different mentality. Channels are what the customers want to do. Customers move fluently between channels. Channels can be more than the sum of their parts.
To overcome, think like a product manager. There's that "content as product" again. Use design thinking, journey maps, and holistic views.
Content is not king. It is currency. Only valuable when you can exchange content for something of value.
Hanging on to the past
The most dangerous phrase in the language is "we've always done it this way." Mentality holds back projects.Don't just provide a training course. Provide a support program, the long game.
Working in silos
If you look too closely, you miss the big picture. Measure individual interactions, you miss the satisfaction from the journey.Build cross-functional standards groups. Journey-based KPIs. What does success look like in each department, and are they pulling in the same direction? Build RACI charts.
Build a content strategy for your content strategy. Messaging architecture, editorial calendar, communications cadence, etc. Write stuff down, but concisely, in easily accessible places.
Death by tagging
Build meaningful models. The more structure and semantics in your original template, the less retrospective tagging is required. Without a good content model, reuse won't happen.Natural language processing, the right tools, and a good taxonomy can scale tagging and personalization. Proper measurement requires consistent tagging.
Unified Content Strategy in the Real World
What is content? Books, articles, white papers, videos, anything that engages with an audience. Content is king, yes, but it is also a product.
Craft it as a product, package it as a product, measure it like a product.
One of the steps is to take a content inventory. Want to map content to a customer journey. A content inventory template might include the topic, it's purpose, format, and owner, and also look at how it is used through buying stages.
Again in this session, we're talking about target personas. Then, content analysis, is it accurate, is it up-to-date, is it findable. Content SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
Used an editorial roadmap to determine the decisions to make as content is developed.
Apparently, spreadsheets are really useful for content inventories and content planning and content requirements. The spreadsheets help because it helps visualize while moving fast.
Content can be political, just agreeing on what tools to use for its development. Having similar goals helped build unified teams.
Craft it as a product, package it as a product, measure it like a product.
One of the steps is to take a content inventory. Want to map content to a customer journey. A content inventory template might include the topic, it's purpose, format, and owner, and also look at how it is used through buying stages.
Again in this session, we're talking about target personas. Then, content analysis, is it accurate, is it up-to-date, is it findable. Content SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.
Used an editorial roadmap to determine the decisions to make as content is developed.
Apparently, spreadsheets are really useful for content inventories and content planning and content requirements. The spreadsheets help because it helps visualize while moving fast.
Content can be political, just agreeing on what tools to use for its development. Having similar goals helped build unified teams.
Connecting the Dots in Content Creation
This early morning session was by Sharon Austin, of Amplexor. She talked about a content journey map. And that journey map is very dependent on location and culture.
One notion is to culturally adapt language. The end result may not be an exact match in each culture, but it is more important to be culturally relevant.
Consumers look for language that is relevant to them.
Pillars of content adaption. In design, images don't translate well. Colors mean different things in different cultures. Emojis don't translate well.
In voice and style, it is the most complex area to adapt. So many ways of addressing an audience. An audience adaptation really has to take the audience into consideration.
When you create content, you have a lot of reuse power.
One notion is to culturally adapt language. The end result may not be an exact match in each culture, but it is more important to be culturally relevant.
Consumers look for language that is relevant to them.
Pillars of content adaption. In design, images don't translate well. Colors mean different things in different cultures. Emojis don't translate well.
In voice and style, it is the most complex area to adapt. So many ways of addressing an audience. An audience adaptation really has to take the audience into consideration.
When you create content, you have a lot of reuse power.
Monday, October 28, 2019
Get In the Game - Creating Personalized Customer Experiences with a Unified Content Strategy
Wendy Richardson, of MasterCard, tells us that teams get things done, and we're a critical part of our organization's team. We want a competitive spirit, but in our organization, we wont to focus that competitive spirit on how to make our organizations better.
Knowing your customer is an ever-changing race. How do we understand our target audience when they are moving targets? As people interact with us, we are able to gather information, information about what they are doing and what they need and target information to them. Customers don't always use content the way they thought they would.
We also want to understand if the content we're delivering maximizes its value. Talking with customers helps in this.
We want to communicate and know the value of our team. When we talk to executives, we tailor the messages to what's important to them.
Our brand as communicators and our brand as a team is important. We all as individuals have a brand within our organizations. What is that brand, and is it the right one to get us to greater goals?
Knowing your customer is an ever-changing race. How do we understand our target audience when they are moving targets? As people interact with us, we are able to gather information, information about what they are doing and what they need and target information to them. Customers don't always use content the way they thought they would.
We also want to understand if the content we're delivering maximizes its value. Talking with customers helps in this.
We want to communicate and know the value of our team. When we talk to executives, we tailor the messages to what's important to them.
Our brand as communicators and our brand as a team is important. We all as individuals have a brand within our organizations. What is that brand, and is it the right one to get us to greater goals?
Heroes and Villians of Content Strategy
Alan Porter claims that we're the heroes.
Captain Content is the hero that we all want to be, understands the value of content, understand the customer point of view, and they are there to help those who need it. The holistic view of what content can and should be.
Up against the Slick Copy Man. Enamored with the latest technology, wants the thing of the day. Get people who think about that thing in isolation and make content for just it. You wonder why they thought that was a good idea. Ask them where it fits within the strategy.
The least glamorous hero in the content world is the Content Auditor. Needs a systematic, pragmatic person.
They come across the Invisible Owner. The sort of person who creates content once and forgets about it. Content that's not tracked, not reviewed, no one knows where it is. Easy to find content, hard to find who owns it.
The Channel Master is the Dr. Strange of the content world. The empathetic magician of knowledge, understanding that content flows across the organization.
They come against the Content Slinger, who writes content and just throws it out into the world. Was asked to do this one thing and I did it. No idea if it fits into the company voice.
Hero with the biggest challenge is the Agent of C.H.A.N.G.E. Change is hard. Technology is easy, but if you don't think about people first, how the technology will affect people, then the change will fail.
Nemesis is Corporate Inertia. Feet firmly planted, "we've always done it this way." The hardest thing to move.
Even though we know what needs to get done, often we're at a standoff because of our nemeses. We'd like to get to everyone working together. How to do this in practice?
New operating model for content: content services organization. Global org that understands content as a corporate asset. A central group that orchestrates content practices across the org.
Three disciplines on this team: content strategy, content engineering, content operations. Collaborate with info architecture, data science, and more.
Captain Content is the hero that we all want to be, understands the value of content, understand the customer point of view, and they are there to help those who need it. The holistic view of what content can and should be.
Up against the Slick Copy Man. Enamored with the latest technology, wants the thing of the day. Get people who think about that thing in isolation and make content for just it. You wonder why they thought that was a good idea. Ask them where it fits within the strategy.
The least glamorous hero in the content world is the Content Auditor. Needs a systematic, pragmatic person.
They come across the Invisible Owner. The sort of person who creates content once and forgets about it. Content that's not tracked, not reviewed, no one knows where it is. Easy to find content, hard to find who owns it.
The Channel Master is the Dr. Strange of the content world. The empathetic magician of knowledge, understanding that content flows across the organization.
They come against the Content Slinger, who writes content and just throws it out into the world. Was asked to do this one thing and I did it. No idea if it fits into the company voice.
Hero with the biggest challenge is the Agent of C.H.A.N.G.E. Change is hard. Technology is easy, but if you don't think about people first, how the technology will affect people, then the change will fail.
Nemesis is Corporate Inertia. Feet firmly planted, "we've always done it this way." The hardest thing to move.
Even though we know what needs to get done, often we're at a standoff because of our nemeses. We'd like to get to everyone working together. How to do this in practice?
New operating model for content: content services organization. Global org that understands content as a corporate asset. A central group that orchestrates content practices across the org.
Three disciplines on this team: content strategy, content engineering, content operations. Collaborate with info architecture, data science, and more.
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