iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
A. Content Strategy: An Introduction
I. What is Content Strategy?
Content strategy is about bringing the right content to the right person at the right time, in the right
context, and making sure it's accurate,up-to-date, and appropriate through ongoing engagement.
covers the planning for, development of, and management of content
In the modern web design process, content strategy kicks in at the planning stage and plays a role
throughout the entire process from ideation to design and development through publishing and
maintenance.
Today, content strategy overlaps with and provides frameworks, structure, and content to existing
disciplines like information architecture, user experience design, content management, and
marketing.
a communication of ideas must take place, requiring an in-depth understanding of an audience,
their needs, and their communication style. Without this, the content and the business it supports
will fail
Content strategy is the planning for and creation, delivery, and governance of
useful, usable content that, in turn, helps you reach business goals.
The role of a content strategist is to be an advocate, both for the content and
its audience. She needs to align communication channels to ensure the
content is prioritized
II. What is content?
anything that conveys meaningful information to a person. Content can be presented as text
or graphics or images or video or audio
anything that communicates or transfers meaningful information to a person, emphasis on
meaningful information.
To know what content is, we need to know what meaningful information is and how this relates
to content strategy
information is meaningful when it enables the transfer of an idea beyond the words or
imagery itself
The challenge content strategy faces with meaning is the assumption that meaning is
universal. Actually, it's far from it. There is no guarantee the meaning I find in a piece of
content will be the same as yours.
How we derive meaning from content depends on the context we're in, the language we
use, our culture, upbringing, and many other factors
iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
The content strategist enhances the meaningful information of content by
understanding the intended message, context it's presented in, and how to
transfer it to the right audience.
III. The problem we are trying to solve
How do we ensure the message reaches the right audience, and is understood?
While the final content matters to the content strategist, their true focus is on
understanding the content creator and their intentions, the audience and their needs and
desires, the nature of the channels and mediums the content will be presented in, the
people and processes that produce and maintain the content, and the ongoing planning for
and management of the content.
B. The Content Strategy Process
I. The components of a content strategy
Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web
o Identify the different overall components that must be covered to create a holistic content
strategy
o Analytical, and draws clear lines of separation between each component, while at the same
time reminding us they are all interconnected as part of a larger whole
Erin Kissane, The Elements of Content Strategy
o Approaches the problem in a more streamlined manner, organizing the different
components of content strategy along a timeline for practical application
o outlines the process as three distinct stages:
o EVALUATE
research and analysis takes place to establish a solid understanding of the
stakeholders, subject matter, and audience
o DESIGN
iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
planning and structural decisions are made to ensure the content is
organized and presented in an easily accessible and understandable way
EXECUTE
structures are put in place for the actual creation, publication, and
maintenance of the contents, both short-term and long-term
4-stage Approach in this course
C. Users, Motivations & Goals
I. Content strategy for the people
Why? What? For whom? In what context?
Think of the customers/users as PEOPLE who interact with the content, both those who create
the message and those who receive it
Develop a solid core built on an understanding of the intentions of the creator, the motivations
of the recipient and how to ensure successful communication between them
II. Identify and understand stakeholders
Stakeholders – owners, managers, creators or maintainers
The goal of talking to stakeholders is to get a clear answer to these three questions.
What message are we communicating?
What does success mean for this project?
And how do we set realistic, measurable goals?
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UX Foundations: Content Strategy
The best way to go about this process is through project research and stakeholder interviews
Methodology
Educate yourself on the overall project and its goals
What is the project, business, organization all about?
What are the goals?
How do we measure value?
Perform stakeholder interviews
What are the business goals?
What are the tactics used to reach these goals?
What are the requirements for this project?
The answers to these questions will likely change depending on the person
you're talking to and their role in the organization. The people who work on the
ground, so-to-speak, often have practical issues and examples of issues the
project can help solve
III. Define an audience
Who is the organization aiming to reach?
Typically, there will be an archetypal user defined for which the organization and its products or
services was originally designed
Based on this archetype build a list of key characteristics that define them.
What makes this audience unique?
How does this uniqueness connect them to your product or service?
From this primary audience establish secondary and tertiary audiences.
Who influences and who is inspired by the primary audience?
Who are the decision makers? And who is involved in the decision making process?
What do their networks look like?
In this process it's a good idea to do a competitive analysis.
Who is the defined audience of your closest competitors?
Who are their influencers?
How are they reached?
How are their goals being met?
One strategy that can be effective in defining an audience is first mapping out your potential
audience, primary, secondary, tertiary etcetera and then narrowing down a group within the
group as your target audience.
This will ensure you've explored your entire potential for reach and made an educated
decision on what audience to target. It also provides a wider footprint if the target
audience needs to be changed or expanded in the future.
IV. Understanding context
Circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea from which it can be fully
understood and assessed
o What context is the publisher in when they create the content, and what context do
they assume the audience is in when they access that content?
iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
o What context is the audience actually in and will their understanding of the content
change based on either of these contexts?
In content strategy, it's important to identify what contexts may impact peoples' perception and
understanding of what they are presented with and account for it as much as possible. The most
obvious example here is accessibility issues.
When planning for your content strategy, make sure you identify relative contexts (example:
data accessibility) and plan and test for them to ensure everyone is able to access your content.
V. Develop fact-based personas
Personas – archetypal descriptions of people, complete with names and attributes, that
encompass the common attributes and qualities of different groups within the target audience
Traditionally, personas have been developed to represent people in an ideal context and state
for accessing the content. But in the past few years, a more nuanced approach has been
established where persona spectrums are developed to represent the same person in different
contexts and situations. This is done to ensure the personas more accurately reflect real people
and their real lives and real challenges and real changing environments
Personas must be based on real data from real people, gleaned from interaction with the actual
people in this group
o Conducting interviews and surveys
Start by mapping out info about the target audience that are relevant to the
project (age, gender, residence, device used, etc)
Turn these pieces of information into questions that will produce accurate and
useful data
Build persona spectrums by asking questions that relate to different contexts
relevant to your subject matter and allow the respondents to provide different
answers, depending on these contexts
When you've collected data from enough respondents that you feel like you
have a representative sample, collate that data into three or more personas
(ideally one ideal persona and two that represent opposite ends of an extreme)
and then develop one or more spectrums based on relevant contexts
Liven these personas up by giving them names, photos, vital statistics, etc
VI. Extend personas with empathy maps
Putting personas in the context of their surroundings
Maps out what the persona thinks and feels, sees, says and does, and hears, as well as their
pains and gains
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UX Foundations: Content Strategy
VII. User motivation & goals
D. Analysis and Structure
I. Substance and structure
What are we publishing? The content itself or the substance. And how, where and with what are
we publishing it?
2 parts
o 1. Analyze new and existing content to make sure the substance of the project meets
the motivations and goals of stakeholders and their audience
o 2. Create a map of the content that needs to be written and produced, along with the
structures to present the content in the easiest, most accessible and most meaningful
way. In this process, we'll use the personas and empathy maps as a foundation to map
out content, information architecture and activity flows.
II. The quantitative content audit
A tally of every piece of content that exists or will exist in the project
Each piece of content is listed along with relevant metadata to form a clear picture of what
exists, what needs to be created, and who is responsible for each item
For a new project where every piece of content has to be generated, the quantitative content
audit is closely linked to the information architecture process, which we'll cover later in this
chapter, and consists of listing out all the items of content that need to go on the site. For a
project that deals with existing content, the quantitative content audit first registers and
accounts for every piece of existing content before adding or making changes to the list.
III. The qualitative content audit
judging the quality of each piece of content and also making sure your content doesn't have any
gaps.
ongoing process that you'll circle back to throughout the initial content production process and
also as the project goes live.
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UX Foundations: Content Strategy
For each piece of content, ask the following questions:
o Does it meet the project goals?
Is it communicating what we intended to communicate?
Is it useful?
Does it have a purpose and is that purpose meaningful to the audience?
Is it audience-centered?
Does the content provide the audience with something they need or have use
of?
Can the audience understand the content and figure out its context and use? Is
it clear?
Does it speak in a language the audience can understand?
Is it consistent?
Does it match the overall voice and tone of the project?
Is the message in line with other content?
Does it feel like it belongs in the experience?
Is it supported?
o Is there a plan in place to keep the content updated when things change?
o Can the audience ask questions and get informed answers about the content?
o During the qualitative content audit, you should also start thinking about what
channels
o During the qualitative content audit, you should also start thinking about what channels
different pieces of content will be targeted at.
o Also a great time to do a gap and competitive analysis
Gap analysis - looks at the quantitative and qualitative audits and asks whether
all necessary content is present and all questions are answered sufficiently.
Competitive analysis – looks at closest competitors and makes sure you provide
better or more communicative content that fills the gaps they have in their
content
IV. Content Models
A typical web-based publication has at least three content models:
static pages
blog or news posts
fillable forms
Mapping out these content models is an important part of the content strategy process. This
helps identify what content fits in each content model bucket and builds bridges between
content creators, designers, and developers as the content moves from early stage drafts to
publication.
Example steps: product page
write down all the different pieces of content that may need to be on the product page
(you may ignore global components like header, footer, etc)
write down all the different pieces of content that may need to be on the product page
Group 1 – store info like sku number, price, stock, short desc, image
Group 2 – long desc, features, reviews
iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
identity what type of content each of these items are. This information will inform
where the content is mapped in the CMS or other solution used to publish the content
and ensure the content is managed rationally on the back-end.
Is it a single line of text or a multi-line text area?
Is it an interactive field like a URL, email address, or a phone number?
Is it a sortable taxonomy used to group items together?
Is it an image or other media or is it another type of content like select toggle?
Rank the priority of each piece of content. This ensures the most important content is
presented first and it's prioritized whenever the content is presented.
V. Scenarios & activity flows
establish when the audience access the content, why they are there and what they want to
accomplish and how to get them through the experience in the most effective way possible
scenarios can describe the same user with different motivations or different users with the same
goal but from different entry points
figure out which scenarios are common and which are most relevant, you can use them as a
starting point for crafting activity flows.
Activity flow –
actual path a person follows through the experience
goal of the activity flow is to map out most logical paths of different scenarios and make
sure the person is taken only through necessary steps
VI. Information architecture & wireframing
An information architect design structures that accommodate the different contents
Information architecture is the structural design of shared information environments, the art
and science of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities, and software to
support usability and findability
Try to take a look at the user flows, finalized content audit and content models. These
documents provide guidance and a clear picture of what flows need to be prioritized, what
content is available, and what types of content need to be accommodated.
2 levels of IA:
o Macro level
Hierarchical flow chart that maps out the organization, labeling, and structure of
different components on the project
o Micro level
maps out wireframes for individual views across varying screen widths and
presentation platforms.
The goal is to ensure the content priority and hierarchy is maintained, and the content is
presented in a logical way that is easy to consume and navigate
VII. Analysis & structure for the project
Quantitative analysis
o Complete content inventory – individual pages with components
o Identify content types and models to help in development of actual views/pages
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UX Foundations: Content Strategy
Qualitative analysis
o Examining the list to draft content models
o Determine how data will be stored and displayed on front-end
Field or content types, character limits, relationships, journeys/flows (based
on user scenarios)
o Should be done at different stages in the entire process
Use wireframes to illustrate hierarchy, relationships and structure (for web and mobile)
E. Guides, templates & workflows
I. Guides, templates & workflows
To make the implementation of a content strategy as streamlined as possible
Process should include content designers, creators & developers
II. Voice & tone
Sets a scene and context for what is being communicated
In content strategy, the main focus is authenticity and consistency; must match the personality
and attitude of the company
Establishes what kind of personality the content will present – friendly, professional, familiar,
authoritative, etc
Tone must consider the customer at the other end & their frame of mind when receiving your
content
Questions to ask when establishing voice and tone
o What are the values the project should promote?
o What is the personality of the project and the company?
o How do we want to be perceived?
o Is it important to communicate authority and professionalism?
o Does humor have a role to play in our communication?
o What state of mind is the visitor in when accessing the content?
Set up wider guidelines about the type of language used, the reading level content should be
targeted at, and whether jargon is appropriate in this context
Make sure all content have the same tone and voice; otherwise, customers will feel like they’re
interacting with different personalities
III. Style guide
In the context of content strategy, a style guide goes beyond color swatches and font examples
to include text, image, audio and video samples that provide a detailed blueprint for how
content should be written and presented
The manual for content creation and ensures every piece of content created matches the overall
look, feel and experience of the project
IV. Examples & templates
In a typical content strategy document, the examples are either added where specific principles
are introduced, or as a separate section that can be easily navigated to find relevant information
iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
In addition to examples, advanced templates can streamline the content creation process and
mask its technical underpinnings.
V. Workflows
When content is created and managed, it's not enough to focus on the content and it's quality
alone. You also have to consider the time it takes, the costs involved and the people doing the
work.
Who is creating the content? Who is editing that content? Who is approving the content?
Where is the content added? How is the content added? How adds the content? Who publishes
the content? And who manages the content once it's been published?
When creating workflows, start by documenting existing workflows through interviews and
observations of the content creation process
Once you have a clear picture of how content is created, draw a flow chart and invite the
content creators and managers to provide input. More than likely, the act of mapping out the
workflows will unveil inefficiencies or bottlenecks that can be avoided or bring awareness to a
simplified method most of the team are unaware of
In addition to high level content workflows, it's usually a good idea to create micro-level
workflows for parts of the content strategy process that are repeated often
Established workflows play a significant role in ensuring all steps are followed and things are
done properly.
Mapped out workflows are great for new team members as they are on-boarded. Having a clear
roadmap that explains the content creation and maintenance process makes it easier for them
to jump in and become part of that process.
F. Creation & management
I. Governance & ownership
Who owns the content? There are different roles in the creation of content
To get stakeholders and contributors to feel passionate about the content and invest in it, they
have to feel a sense of ownership to it.
Encouraging a sense of ownership in the audience makes them ambassadors for your products
and services.
II. Who creates the content?
To produce content that is meaningful to your audience and brings them to your products and
services, you need to speak to them at a deeper level.
Good content contributors are able to communicate relevant information in a way that is easily
understood by the target audience. This often means condensing and simplifying complex
information without dumbing it down, a skill that requires talent and training.
III. Budgeting & advocacy
When establishing a content strategy, it's imperative that proper funding is part of the
conversation from day one. Great content is an investment in the future, now more than ever.
iGrow Course
UX Foundations: Content Strategy
make both the content strategy and ongoing content work both transparent and visible to all
levels of management. When the people in charge of budgets and financing see the work being
done and the results rendered, they'll be more inclined to invest in content and publishing.
IV. Measuring success
For the content strategy to be effective, it has to have clearly stated and measurable goals
Internal
o to see that the content strategy is implemented and works to make content ideation,
creation, and management effective and goal-oriented
o monitor the content creation and management process to make sure A, the content
strategy is being followed, and B, the framework provided by the content strategy is
working
o If the content strategy is new, allow some time for adoption and expect to make
changes to fit theory with reality. king as intended.
o look at time saved by following the set out procedures and workflows, and look at the
quality of the final output. (before & after comparisons)
External
o to make sure the content meets the needs of the audience and the goals of the
organization
