Content strategy is the process by which content is analyzed, sorted, constructed, and placed. Users come to a site for its content first and foremost, so it is the most important part of a site.

Before any discussion of design or development, an understanding of a product owner's content is imperative in order to produce not only an effective website, but lay an effective foundation for any and all future endeavors, from apps to ads to printed material.

The entirety of a finished product is determined by this initial step, from what content actually is put onto pages to what components get built to what the final site looks like.

Project Vision

Who Is This Site For?

The grounding point of a project, the Project Vision is a single sentence source of truth around which all decisions will be made

Questions to Answer

• What is the Product Owner's Goal for this site?
• Who is the site built for? What do we want our audience to learn?
• Who is maintaining the site? What will they need to be able to do?
• What is critical to success? What are these dependent on?

In order to provide for a well-informed electorate who want to stay up-to-date and relate to high quality relevant worldwide news and information on an ever growing array of platforms, our editorial team will utilize an easy-to-use platform that can be accessed from any device from across the world to quickly and effortlessly update and create new stories.

User Personas

Who Uses This Site?

A User Persona Is

• A Caricature of a type of user that will be accessing the site
• A hypothesis of types of users that are already on the site, using analytics data (if available)
• Usable after we are able to confirm or update our hypothesis through user interviews

A User Persona Contains

• A name, either real (Sally Smith) or caricature (Loyal Customer). The later is prefered
• Their motivator for using the product (primary, secondary, tertiary needs, etc…)
• Their typical use of the product
• Their pain points with the product

Domain Modeling

What Is The Site?

A domain model is a conceptual model of all the topics related to a specific problem. It describes the various entities, their attributes, their roles, and relationships, plus the constraints that govern the problem domain.

Background

• Domain modeling is a rigorous approach to software development
• Its aims are similar content strategy, but in a broader scope
• Many domain modeling techniques are useful in content strategy
• ...especially if there's no existing site to work from!

In a Nutshell

• Domain experts (clients) provide the big, raw picture of the domain (the content)

• Architects (you) refine this raw knowledge into a tight, concise model, gaining domain expertise in the process

Doing the Modeling

• Proper domain modeling should happen in tandem with content strategy
• Start with broad strokes: a big brainstorm to outline the overall domain
• Iterate by refining, reducing, and experimenting with prototypes
• Return for more input from clients/experts when things stop making sense
• Rinse and repeat, throughout the project

Artifacts of Domain Modeling

• Modeling will produce lots of diagrams describing things, relationships, and behaviors
• Proper domain modeling involves lots of things like entities, value objects, and services
• It will also create a Ubiquitous Language - and that's what matters for content strategy

Ubiquitous Language

• Shared by everyone: domain experts, developers, designers...users!
• Terminology is unambiguous, clear, and precise
• Describes everything in the model: the content, interactions, rules, etc.

Content Inventory

What's On The Current Site?

• An Objective, Broad Strokes look at Currently Avaialble Content
• Not just pages or screens, but the attributes and piece that make up larger pieces of content
• Should contain both intrinsic (title, owner, last updated) and analytics (page views, rank, notes) data

Content Audit

Does My Current Content Make Sense?

• Is the content too long, too short, or just right? Can longer content be cut into shorter chunks and still make sense?
• Is the copy wordy? Does it ramble? Can it be cleaned up without losing its meaning?
• Does each page or chunk get to the point quickly?
• Is content even broken up into chunks?
• Is the content relevant and important?

Gap Analysis

• Keep as-is
• Revise and edit to tighten up copy and content types
• Delete because it's irrelevant, not useful, or outdated
• Create New where new business goals don't meet existing content. New content types may be gleaned from needs discovered in user interviews.

Content Modeling

What Is My Content?

• Each model is an overview of a type of content available
• Models must contain at least one user persona's benefit statement with value
• Good models include both visible and structural attributes (chunks that make up a piece of content)
• Attributes should be determined by content inventory and content audit
• Should be presentation independent

Content Models Must Be Valuable To At Least One Persona. If It Isn't, Don't Include It!

Information Architecture

What Pieces Of What Content Go Where?

Design Source Order and Value

• Most valuable content should be most prominent
• Should be consistent and predictable across pages
• Avoid clutter and reduce complication

Revises Content Model

• Truncation is not a content strate…
• Build Systems of Content
• Make Content Easy to Navigate
• Make All Content Available, Always

  * Site Header
  * Branding
    * Site Logo
      - Brand : Logo
      - 300x50
    * Site Name
      - Brand : Title
  * Navigation
    * Sections
      - Taxonomy : Title
      - filter: Sections
* Content Area
  * Main Content
    - Article : Title
    - Article : Body
    - Article : Author
    - 1
* Site Footer
  * Copyright
    - Brand : Copyright