On Content and Curiosity | Contents Magazine
A good message about the need for focus.
A good message about the need for focus.
The most useful talk of the day for me was the talk on content strategists and user experience designers working together by Erin Scime and Jessica L’Esperance.
They compared web vs mobile content strategy—mobile is more focused, content is managed on the web and pushed to mobile, and generally only a subset of the content is pushed to the mobile site.
Mobile needs include: Reduce photos and videos Make it easy to read Expose navigation Elevate local and immediate needs - and understand and support the primary use cases
Kristina Halvorson’s talk in the morning was also useful. She had some good advice for how in-house employees can act like consultants by asking tough questions.
Darren Barefoot had a solid list of pitfalls to avoid with mobile content. I’ll have to write up more on that later.
And Scott Abel flew through the past, present, and future of content.
From the workshop with Christine Benson and Meghan Casey -
Loved the message hierarchy pyramid and the key idea of making the site map correspond to it. At the tip of the pyramid is the overall message. Below that, a more specific statement. Then, a general statement about the message the website conveys, and finally, details of how the site does that.
Also loved their page tables, which I’ve seen in other presentations from Brain Traffic.
From Karen McGrane -
Any device-optimized strategy will eventually fail. Build for flexibility instead of for a specific device.
Also, content creators are up next for a smack down. They need to write for the content store—a collection of reusable content—not for the website. (For example, write a “short summary” rather than a “blurb for the index page”.)
Looking forward to reading through these presentations from Confab. Would have liked to have been there, but reading the slides is the next best thing. Maybe next year.
Analylsis, Editorial, Architecture
And further resources
I’m attending Webcontent 2011. Looking forward to talking content for two days.
It isn’t often that you come across a book that makes your highlighter work overtime. Colleen Jones’ book, Clout: the Art and Science of Influential Web Content, is just such a book. Chock full of Colleen’s brilliant insights and unique approaches to creating Web content, this book is the first to bridge the gap between user experience, marketing communications, and content strategy. It offers a complementary approach to all three disciplines that you shouldn’t undertake lightly. But, typically, UX professionals do not undertake this approach often enough.
A common occurrence: you or someone you know wants to create content and have it published online. A slightly less common occurrence? Having that same someone articulate high aspirations for their content. For those select few, instead of creating content destined for some digital landfill, their content is special; it’s going places and it’s taking them, their brand, and their experience with it.
