Designing content modules

In my last post, I talked about the "why" and "how" of using content modules to improve efficiency and user experience. In this post, I'll talk about some of the specific considerations in designing content modules. 

Content Module Categories

It's important to think about content modules as a whole, and not to use them for a bunch of one-off messages. Think about the type of information that you want to convey through content modules, and then categorize them. For example, in a recent project that I worked on with Theresa Putkey for Rocky View County in Alberta we decided to use these categories:

• Alerts
• Events/Meetings
• Profiles
• News
• Related Topics
• Contact
• Application CTA
• Survey
• Interesting Facts

Categorizing content modules is extremely important for a number of reasons. Categories are a cornerstone of developing an effective taxonomy, which is they only way to automate updates of contextually relevant content. They're also important to ensure that similar types of information are presented consistently.

Content Module Types

Once you've got your key categories, you can break them down further into content types. These represent the different common types of information that you'll present in each category. You really need to have a strong understanding of your content at this point. Using the examples from the Rocky View County project, here are two of their categories broken down into standard content types:

• Alerts:
• Fire bans
• Weather warnings
• Road closures

• Events/Meetings:
• Basic statistics and link
• Statistics with brief description and link
• List of upcoming events/meetings and links

Defining content modules to this level helps to keep them focused and consistent and prevents a reactive approach to using them to publish any small bits of content that don't fit anywhere else. It also really helps writers to have a template to follow so they can quickly and easily write content that works for each type of content module.

Content Module Priorities

Depending on your website, you may want to assign each category of module with a different priority so that your CMS can pull one type of content module in preference to another. In the examples listed above, the Alert modules were the only content module given a priority one. This meant that in the spots that we wanted Alerts to appear, they would take precedence over any other content modules if they were available. If there were not, then that spot would be filled by a priority two module that met other specifications required of that spot.

Content Module Design

Once you know the type of content you'll be working with in each module, you need to define design requirements. Content modules should be designed to stand out on the page, but not compete against each other for user attention. “Alert” modules should be the most prominent element on any page. Strong CTA's should also be very prominent and obvious. All content modules should follow a consistent visual schema, with each type of content module having its own consistent structure and design. 

Some of the design decisions you'll need to consider and standardize include:

• Visual design
• Size and dimensions
• Text and font size
• Headings and phrasing
• Information design
• Number of characters or words per text element
• Use of photos and/or graphics

Visual design aside, the best way to figure out these design issues is to draft some copy for a number of each type of module and get a sense of the "norm".  Then you can develop sample copy for each content module that can be used to inform the visual design and content guidelines. That way you can be sure that the design requirements actually support the content and not the other way around.

Below are two examples of different types of content modules in the Events category:

Looking at these examples, you can see how a visual designer could get a good understanding of the type and scope of content that he's designing for, and how you could easily create templates and guidelines to help writers develop consistent content across similar content modules. 

Be sure to include content modules in your writer's style guide, and include specifications for each content module type. For example, one type of content module may consist of a heading, brief description, and a descriptive link to the main topic page. You can also specify if there are any constraints such as character limitations, phrasing preferences, or tone of voice variations. 

What other ideas do you have for working with content modules? I'd love to hear other stories about what has worked well for you, or what challenges you've encountered. 

And I extend a huge "Thank You" to the Rocky View team for allowing us to reference their project work and examples in this post. 

Using Content Modules to Improve Efficiency and User Experience

What Are Content Modules?

Content modules are small chunks of content that can be placed on standard web pages, typically in the right side-bar area or at the bottom of the page. Each module contains content that can be automatically (or manually) updated or changed based on certain criteria. Some types of pages, such as a home or landing pages, can be built almost entirely by using content modules as building blocks.

Why Use Content Modules? 

The number one reason to use content modules is to provide consistent, up-to-date, relevant information across a website without having to manually update each and every page. If you build a home or landing page by using content module building blocks, the primary page content can be automatically updated to make sure that it's always fresh. On most other types of pages, content modules provide secondary, or supporting, content. Using content modules based on a clear taxonomy and specific criteria is the only efficient way to provide dynamically updated content designed to create a specific user experience across an entire website.  

Through content modules, you can create an information path for users to follow that is changeable and outside of the standard navigation. Content modules provide visual distinction and consistency to specific types of information (such as call-to-actions, article excerpts, alerts, etc) and enables you to easily update information throughout the site. If a contact number changes, simply update the information in your content management system (CMS) and all content modules used in the website that refer to that contact number will automatically update. 

Consistency between similar types of information helps users to accurately predict and find information on any page in your site. Content modules are also a great way to give your users more than they came for. If you know that people visit a specific page on your site to learn about something, use content modules to provide the next steps in learning or taking action. Correctly anticipating what your users want or need next, and providing an opportunity to proceed, goes a long way in creating a positive user experience. Content modules can keep your users engaged, on your site, and pleasantly surprised.

The specific purpose of the content modules will depend on your overall content, user, and business goals as well as on the capabilities of your CMS. Here are some ways that you can use content modules:

• Time-sensitive themes or campaigns. In many websites, you have huge areas of static, never-changing page copy and then a blog area that is frequently updated with new content. There is often very little interplay between these areas and, editorially, there is no connection. Using content modules allows you to unify your entire website, not only by promoting your blog posts throughout your website, but also by presenting a common theme or perspective for a period of time. For instance, you may want to showcase your in-depth knowledge of your industry by sprinkling interesting and relevant facts and informational tidbits throughout your site. Or you could profile people who have inspired you or your customers (or of course you can profile your staff and your customers). You may want to highlight seasonal information or advice, or raise awareness of a specific current affair that's relevant to your business and your customers.
  
  To create themes you need to think like a magazine editor. Themes are determined through a strong understanding of customer interest and business strategy and are defined in advance to give content contributors an opportunity to develop relevant content. Using themes helps to prevent a "mish-mash" approach to content that often ends up just creating "noise" where every message competes with each other, rather than demonstrating a unified voice that conveys a strong message.
  
  Here's an easy way to think about themes: In reality, your website is a mosaic of messages. Every page, every piece of content, has a distinctly different message. Content modules are small content bites that also each have their own message. Frequently, different stakeholders are each given their content "real estate" and they're each invested in getting their message across. The result is a mosaic of messages that creates no real sense of unity or clarity. By introducing themes through content modules you're able create a layer of information on top of your static page content that combines to create a clear message (or picture) that reflects your organization. When you change the theme, the core content on the site remains the same, but the modules send a completely different message that reflects your corporate values in a new way. These changing and distinct messages are much more apparent and memorable to users than consistently presenting many competing messages.
  
  
• Call-to-Actions. One of the most common uses of content modules is to provide standardized call-to-actions (CTAs). For each type of CTA that you need, simply develop it once and plug it in wherever it's relevant. This results in a much more efficient process and consistent set of CTAs. These can include contact information, "buy" or "apply now" messages, forms of any sort, surveys, downloads, links to more information... anything that causes the customer to take further action
  
  
• Contextual richness. Every module should be contextually tied to the content on the page where it appears. If it's unrelated, it doesn't belong. For example, you would not place a content module with an article excerpt about weed control on a page about recycling. Similarly, you would not put an “Apply Now” call-to-action on a page that had no associated application. A strong taxonomy is essential to provide this type of contextually relevant content.

As you design your web pages and content, design a standard set of content modules that support your communication strategy and user goals. Then, pick and choose which content modules to include on which pages and assign specifications for updating the content based on a taxonomy. For instance, you may set the content modules to check for new content once a day, once a week, or seasonally at pre-defined times. And you can specify that specific modules only update if the new content contains associated tags. 


Next week, I'll discuss in more detail how to design effective content modules and the common categories and content module types. In the meantime, what are some other ways that content modules are used?

Customer-Centric Content: 10 Do's & 10 Do Not's.

It's no secret that if you want to engage your customers, you need customer-centric content. Business people, writers, and marketers are all getting on board with this. But what does customer-centric content look like? And, right now, I'm not talking about the medium or the delivery channel or the content provider. Sure, social media makes it easier to have a conversation with your customers, and customer-generated content is inherently customer-centric... but what about the copy that your company writes? With our ingrained habits of talking about ourselves, our company, and our key benefits, we're not always as good at writing from the customer's perspectives as we'd like.

Here are some tips to keep you focused.

Do Not:

1. Write about how wonderful your company is. It's not credible coming from you.
2. Use a gazillion wonderfully exciting adjectives to describe how unique and revolutionary your amazing new products and services are.
3. Use many words at all.
4. Focus on what you sell.
5. Be too stuffy and serious.
6. Expect your customers to come to your website...just because.
7. Expect to get it right the first time.
8. Interrupt your customers with irrelevant content when they're trying to do something.
9. Try to say more than one thing at one time.
10. Assume your customers are just like you.

Do:

1. Demonstrate that you know who your customers are, without telling them. 
2. Demonstrate how wonderful your company is, without talking about it.
3. Write as if you're a person, wanting to build a relationship with your customers.
4. Reflect your customers motivations, emotions, and life-context in your writing. 
5. Provide content that is relevant to both your customers, and your business. 
6. Be generous in sharing your knowledge in your area of expertise.
7. Get customer feedback, rewrite, revise, repeat.
8. Make products and service details easy to find and make the buying process easy.
9. Publish your content where your customers hang out. 
10. Focus on your industry expertise and customer needs.

Any other good ideas? Let me know.

Creating a Castle from Content Building Blocks

There are so many decisions that need to be made when creating content. To make that process efficient and effective, you need a system. Here's one of the easiest tricks I've found for wrestling messy content into shape: Think about all of the content-development decisions as building blocks. If you wanted to create a castle out of building blocks, you'd choose different blocks than if you wanted to build a truck. And if you wanted to build a bridge, you'd put the blocks together in a different way again. And so it is with content. You can pick and choose different elements (or building blocks) to use to create different effects, and to engage different audiences.

Trying to consider all of these elements whenever you create a new piece of content may seem daunting, but it really isn't. Your resources will dictate some choices, your audience some others. As you get used to making content decisions in this way, it builds a repeatable system that's efficient, and results in content that has both variety and consistency. The variety will keep your customers engaged and extend your reach, while the consistency will create a predictability which your customers will appreciate and learn to recognize. This reinforces your brand. You'll see patterns develop, and you'll learn that certain building blocks go together well and get good responses from your customer, and that other ones just don't.

Every company has different content requirements, but here are some of the building blocks that I typically think about. This is just a list. It's certainly not the list. Use it as a basis to brainstorm which building blocks are relevant within your organization and for your customers.

Content Goals

Stick to one primary goal for each piece of content. For example, the primary purpose of your content may be to:

• Engage
• Inform
• Educate
• Advise 
• Persuade 
• Inspire

Content Types
For instance, is your content essentially:

• An opinion
• An analysis
• A description
• An overview
• A how-to
• News
• A story
• Tips & tricks
• Wayfinding

Content Source
Where does, or should, the content come from?

• A dedicated content team
• Marketing
• Key contributors within your company
• Your executives
• Your subject matter experts
• Your staff
• Your customers
• The public

Content Voice
The voice of your content should be distinct and recognizable. Even an overall corporate voice is made up of a tapestry of individual voices. So, is a specific piece of content best served by the voice of:

• A specific individual
• The "company" voice, and if so does the tone vary based on purpose or different customer segments?
• Your customers
• The public

Content Topics
These are completely driven by your business, but you'll likely have different topics that you frequently speak about relating to your areas of expertise, your customers needs and motivations, and your community actions or involvement.

 

Content Format

This is all about how you're communicating your content. For instance, as a:

• Blog
• Video
• Webinar
• Article
• Image
• Diagram
• Interactive tool
• Checklist
• Interview
• Call-to-action
• Presentation
• Newsletter

Content Placement
Where is this content best published and presented? It could be:

• On your website. If so, where on your website?
• Your blog
• On YouTube, Facebook, or other social networking platform
• External to your company

Content Promotion
What's the best way or ways to promote your content? Through:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Website links
• Presentations

If this list seems overwhelming, then trim it down. Just try to think about the key decisions that are part of your content development process, and then create building blocks that you can keep coming back to. That way, you learn how to build a castle, or a truck, or a bridge, whenever you want to and your customers won't have to look at the pile of content on your site and wonder what the heck it's supposed to be.

Stakeholder interviews for quality content: Why, who, and how

Stakeholder interviews aren't very sexy. They're not new, or controversial, or unique to content strategy. They don't lend themselves to interesting diagrams or sketches. Both writers and clients often overlook them entirely. I'm not sure why. I think they just don't get it. They just don't see how powerful and useful stakeholder interviews can be. They must have tried it once, found it lacking, and gave up on it. If you're one of "them", I suggest you try again.

After all, how can we speak for our clients, if we don't speak to them? Here are some tips to make it easy for you.

Why do stakeholder interviews?

To build relationships and establish credibility. What better way to reach out and establish a conversation with the people who can make or break your project and those who know the most about it? You get to know them, they get to know you, and information is much more likely to flow your way after that. If you're walking in cold as a new project team member, stakeholder interviews (done right) are a fantastic way to establish yourself as someone who can listen, contribute, and add value.

To identify patterns. Whether you're trying to determine content requirements, business objectives, customer needs, or anything else, you have to look for patterns. And the best way to identify patterns is to ask each similar type of stakeholder a similar set of questions. Of course, you're going to ask on-the-fly follow up and probing questions, but when your core set of questions are consistent throughout your interviews, you'll find that patterns emerge. These patterns point you in the right direction.

To find discrepancies. Identifying differences of opinion early in the project is critical. If key stakeholders disagree it's better to bring that to light before any development is done. Sometimes discrepancies are OK (like different business units having different objectives) and can be dealt with in various ways. Other times, you really need to facilitate a commonly accepted approach, whether or not everyone is in agreement. For example, neither you nor the project will be successful if there is no widespread acceptance of who the target market is or how to communicate with them. Discrepancies can also indicate an abundance of subjective opinion and lack of real knowledge. You want to base your content strategy and content decisions on sound research and knowledge.

To unearth that golden nugget. It doesn't matter how prepared the project lead is, and how many stacks of documents they've given you outlining project research and requirements, there is ALWAYS a gold nugget still locked away in a stakeholder's brain. Maybe it's an interesting insight, or a great piece of research, or some examples that demonstrate what can't be articulated through words. Sometimes you just need to get the facts straight, or validate your assumptions. Stakeholders are powerhouses of knowledge, and there's always something new to find out through talking to them directly.

Who do you interview? The people who..

Hold the purse strings. We gotta keep them happy. They also tend to know a lot of useful stuff. Think department Directors, VPs, etc.

Influence the people who hold the purse strings. These people are a giant step closer to the actual project. They've usually fought to get the project budget from the person above and are highly invested in it. You better get input from these people, because if you head off in a direction they don't understand they'll stop you in your tracks. These are often business managers.

Have customer knowledge. These are your customer stand-ins and advocates. They work directly with customers and understand their motivations and pain points. They often have a practical perspective and can provide insights that help you to see past a mountain of wish-lists and identify the few, critical, customer must-haves. These may be call-centre staff, sales people, or service providers.

Have technical knowledge. It's all fine and well to create a brilliant content strategy, but if the client doesn't have the technical resources to make it happen, then it will die before it's born. Do your homework: talk to the IT guys.

Have subject matter knowledge. As a writer, you know a lot of stuff. Especially about writing. But odds are, there are people in the company who know a lot more about what you're writing about than you do. You need to combine your writing wizardry with their knowledge. These people could be anyone. They may have an official title (like "Subject Matter Expert"), or they could be any old employee who has specialized knowledge.

How do you interview?

Get as close as possible. Face-to-face is best. By phone is OK if necessary, and sometimes preferable. For example, I'll often choose to do stakeholder interviews over the phone prior to an out-of-town, on-site project kick off to begin establishing relationships and so I can have something to contribute when we all meet. Then when I arrive on site, they already feel like they know me. But for the most part, interview in person when possible. Don't use surveys of any sort.

Be respectful of time. There's no right or wrong time frame. It depends entirely on the purpose of the interview and who you're interviewing. But as a basic guideline, ask for half the time you think you'd really need and stick to it. If you frame your questions well, and stay on track, you won't need all the time you think you do anyway. And you can always follow up later if necessary. Most of my stakeholder interviews run about 20-45 minutes, depending on the purpose. Subject matter interviews may need longer, but for anything requiring more than 1 hour it's better to break it up over multiple sessions. Or turn it into a half day session and call it a workshop!

Carefully craft your questions. This is critical. Developing really effective interview questions is both art and science. Read up on how to design good interview questions for your objectives. Focus your questions on three or four main topics and make sure that every question counts. Edit out the weak questions and eliminate redundancy unless it's part of your interviewing strategy. Always test-drive your interview questions on a real person first. Bonus points if that test person has a similar knowledge base as your actual stakeholders.

Take good notes. Consider having someone else take notes for you so you can focus on the interview. Make notes of any potential quotes that you could use if you're delivering a stakeholder interview report. Quotes that reflect common themes are a great way to personalize the data you collect.

Where does "tone & voice" fit into your content strategy?

Frequently, a new client will ask me to set the “tone and voice” of their web content. And way too frequently, they don’t have a clue what tone and voice really is. They just know that they’re supposed to have one that works. So to all you business people out there who know you need an effective tone and voice, but don’t really know what that means, where it fits in your content strategy, and how to go about it... this one’s for you!

Tone and voice: What the heck is it?

The easiest way to understand your web copy’s tone and voice is to compare it with your mother.

The voice of your mother (and your web copy) is always recognizable. She has a clear point of view, a distinctive personality, and language idiosyncrasies that make her unique. Her “voice” never changes. It always sounds the same. It’s always recognizable as your mother.

Your mother’s tone, on the other hand, is changeable. She may use a completely different tone when baking cookies with her 5 year old grandson as she does when berating you for driving too fast. She may use a different tone of voice depending on the mood she’s in: angry, happy, confused, scared, or sad. She may use a different tone of voice depending on who she’s speaking to: her colleagues, her friends, her husband, or her children. She may also use a different tone of voice depending on the type of information she’s sharing: she’ll communicate serious information differently than she would tell a joke.

So, the voice remains consistent and recognizable, while the tone may change depending on the audience, the mood, and the message being communicated.

Where does tone and voice fit into your content strategy?

It’s an important piece of the much larger puzzle that makes up your overall content strategy. Yes, tone and voice is really important, but simply defining your tone and voice isn’t enough to get you where you need to go. If you’re looking at your web content seriously, you need to consider the other critical content elements: Are your content processes effective and efficient? Have you got good people with appropriate skill-sets caring for your content? Have you got a suitable content budget and can you demonstrate your content ROI? Does your content contribute to a positive customer experience? Is your content getting your business where it needs to go? Can you (and do you) test the effectiveness of your content? Have you got a clear plan for managing, developing, and publishing content over the next year? How can your content give you a competitive advantage?

Just as your mother by herself does not create a cohesive family, a strong tone and voice by itself does not create great content. Your web content needs to be effective and strategic, and an appropriate tone and voice is only one of the tools you use to get it there.

How do you develop an effective tone and voice?

First, think about voice. You need to have a voice that your core audience will relate to and trust. To do this, you need to really understand your customers. Who are they? How do they speak? Who do they trust, and why? What are they interested in? What do they want or expect from you? What gets them through their day?

An effective voice is not just about writing style. It’s just as much, or more, about what you have to say. What’s your key message? What’s your point of view? What kind of a communicator are you? How much information do you share, and when? How do you respond to customer feedback? What channels do you communicate through? All of these things impact your corporate “voice”, and this voice should personify your brand. 

Next, think about tone. For each different type of information, you need to define an appropriate tone. Do you want to use the same tone for your security guarantees, marketing copy, advertising copy, and customer service FAQs? Probably not. You should identify an appropriate tone to use for each type of content, based on its purpose and your customers’ goals and expectations.  

Finally, think about people and processes.  This is the glue that holds it all together! Now you need to determine the actual writing mechanics, phrasing, and vocabulary that create the desired tone and voice. Develop content prototypes and, if possible, test them with real customers. Make sure that your customers’ perceptions are aligned with your perceptions of the tone and voice, and that it’s effective. Create a writer’s style guide that documents writing and word choices. Keep it up-to-date, and ensure that it’s used by all content developers for all content. If you have multiple writers, assign an editor to ensure that your content has one consistent corporate voice, rather than a chorus of different voices. Make sure that your writers are comfortable using a style guide, and that you have sound content development processes that support quality content. 

So, just make sure that you know your company as well as you know your own mother. And before any word is written, ask yourself what your company would say.

How useful is your content?

Previously, I wrote about how you can ensure that your web content is readable. But it doesn't matter how readable it is if it's not useful. Here are four easy ways to make sure that your content is useful to your customers:

1. Create customer profiles and personas.
   
   Who are your customers? Exactly? Create 3 or 4 primary customer profiles and personas that define who they are, what their needs are, and what they want to accomplish on your site. What are their personal or business motivations? What do they most value? What helps them to make a final decision? Think about the type of content that may be useful to them that they don't even know they need. Use facts and data (to create profiles) and then weave those into engaging characters (or personas) to help you accurately focus your content.
    
   
2. Make it easy for your customers to do something useful.
   
   Your customers may want to contact you by e-mail, by phone, or by online chat. They may want to subscribe to your blogposts, leave a comment, or provide a product or service review. They may want to order your product or services online, refer you to a friend, or compare your products. Discover what they want to do on your site, and make it easy for them. (Tip: Customers don't often know what they want until they experience it!)
    
3. Help your customers to learn something useful.
   
   Most prospective customers will come to your site to learn more about your business or products and services. They may also want to learn about your customer service and support policies. Be generous and transparent in your information. Gone are the days when you could provide a morsel of vague information and expect customers to contact you to learn more. They'll just move on to another site that gives them the information they're looking for. Existing customers will come to your website for customer service and support, to purchase additional products or services, and, if you provide truly useful content, to learn more about something relevant to your business and their lives. That type of content (also known as content marketing) often takes the form of blogs or newsletters, and not only keeps your customers coming back, but is often widely shared among prospective customers.
    
4. Provide content that encourages customers to make a decision. 
   
   Most prospective customers won't make a purchasing decision until they have sufficient information about the product or service, and trust in your company. Why should they buy from you, instead of your competitor? Have other people just like them been happy with your product or service? Why should they buy Product A instead of Product B? Which of your products or services is best for them right now? What happens if they're not happy with their purchase? Again, be generous and transparent in your information. Prices, taxes, fees, additional charges, and return policies should be clear, unless you have a good reason not to publish that information. Testimonials, customer reviews, and customer comments help to instill trust. If your product or service offerings are extensive or confusing, help your customers to determine which is best for them.

How readable is your content?

Content readability is a basic writing fundamental that’s often overlooked when writers or researchers evaluate online content. I’m not sure why. It seems to have gotten a bit lost in all the complexities of content strategy and design. But your content isn’t worth spit if your audience can’t read it! Here’s a quick primer to help you understand the basics of readable online content.

What is readable content?

Content readability describes how easy or difficult it is to read and understand information. Readable content is familiar and invisible. You read it and don’t notice the words at all. You just end up with a strong sense of the message and the personality or brand behind the message. You don’t have to think, interpret, or decipher. You just sort of absorb the information, quickly and easily.

Why bother?

In case you need a few reasons beyond, “It’s the right thing to do”, check these out:

• The average North American adult reads at a grade 8 level.
• Consumers will not read web content that is difficult for them to understand.
• There are an increasing number of regulations and laws to ensure that public-facing legal, medical, and government information is easy to read.
• It’s becoming competitively critical to speak clearly and directly to your customers. If you snooze on this one, you’ll lose.

How do you know if your content is readable?

Integrate good content practices into your writing and editing cycles, and test your assumptions.

1.  Check your writing mechanics

There are some basic rules of readable content. Ask yourself these questions as you conduct your first round of editing:

• Do you mostly use an active voice? Use passive voice only when it serves a particular purpose.
• Do you use first and second person point-of-view whenever possible?
• Do you use consistent terminology? Don’t vary terms for variety sakes.
• Are your sentences short? Say, no more than twenty words per sentence?
• Are your paragraphs short? About 3 or 4 sentences per paragraph, max?
• Do you use serial commas?
• Do you use mostly simple sentence structures?
• Do you follow conventional rules of grammar (unless you have good reason not to)? 

2.  Check your information design

Since you’re editing for mechanics anyway, check this stuff too:

• Do you use lots of headings? Preferably short, descriptive ones.
• Are you presenting information in a way that makes it easier to scan? Maybe a bullet list, or a table, or an illustration, or a graph? Or something else. Just don’t automatically default to narrative text because you have no imagination.
• Is your page (or paragraph, or sentence) loaded with too much information?
• Does your information have a logical and natural flow that your audience will understand?
• Is there enough white space around and between the text?
• Is your type big enough so people don’t have to squint to read it? Typically, 10 pt for a general audience or 12 pt if your audience is over 45 or under 16 years old.
• Is your typeface legible? Sans serif fonts usually work well for online body text. 

3.  Use readability formulas

Readability formulas have their limitations, but they’re an effective way to identify possible problems early in the content creation cycle. They’re also a great way to show “before and after” improvement statistics. Here are two of the most common and easy-to-use readability formulas. You can set up Microsoft Word to run these formulas when you run your spelling check:

• Flesch Reading Ease: This formula takes into account the number of words in each sentence, and the number of syllables in each word. It gives you a score from 0-100, where 100 is extremely simple and 0 is extremely complex. The Plain Language Institute suggests that a score of 80 or higher is considered to be plain language. In web writing for a general consumer audience, we aim for 60 or above. This article scores 61.0 on the Flesch Reading Ease scale.
  
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: This formula takes Flesch Reading Ease results and translates them into North American school grade level equivalents. Remember that the average North American reads at a grade 8 level? That’s where your web writing should be, unless you have clear research about your audience that says otherwise. This article is written at a grade 7.6 level. 

4.  Most importantly, test with your audience!

Seriously, do not skip this step. You’ll be amazed at how effective this is in letting you know what’s really going on with your content. Find 6 or more people within your customer demographic to read through your web content. Ask them to find key information and then pay attention to how long it takes them and what they look at and read as they find their way to the target content. Then, ask them just a few questions to gauge their understanding of key concepts and get a feel for how they experienced the content. Nothing is better than putting real content and real customers together, and seeing what happens!

Now you know how to make your content readable, learn how to make your content useful!

40 web-writing lessons I learned from tech-writing

Most web writers come from different backgrounds. They may have trained in marketing, or journalism, or English literature, or a hundred other things. We each bring our unique experiences, passions, and skills to the way we communicate online. I consider myself very lucky to have a background in technical communications.

Here are some of the things that I learned as a tech-writer that help make me a really great web-writer.

1. Think in 3D. Consider access and departure points.
2. Consider how the information will be used.
3. Predict frustration points and eliminate them.
4. Write clearly.
5. Write consistently.
6. Use short sentences.
7. “Show”, rather than “tell”.
8. Provide context up front.
9. Use graphics and illustrations.
10. Follow rules and industry standards.
11. Break the rules when it helps you to communicate better.
12. Consider ways to help your audience find what they need.
13. Less is more. Except when it’s not enough. Learn the difference.
14. Embrace technology. You need it, so you need to understand it.
15. Know your audience.
16. Know your business drivers.
17. Have clear communication goals.
18. Make sure your goals focus on your audience.
19. Find ways to test your product’s success.
20. Be creative through the constraints.
21. Learn from other disciplines.
22. Break information into small chunks.
23. Think about different ways the chunks can fit together.
24. Layer information.
25. Use lists and tables.
26. Don’t vary word choices just to add variety.
27. Write descriptive headings.
28. Make sure the information hierarchy is visually obvious.
29. Design your information.
30. Learn how and when to use different information design techniques.
31. Write meaningful links.
32. Review and edit everything before it’s published.
33. If in doubt, write for a global audience.
34. Become best friends with your dictionary and style-guide.
35. Hone your project management skills.
36. Never sacrifice quality.
37. Deliver to deadline. Even if it’s not perfect.
38. Edit ruthlessly.
39. Polish your writing and editing skills. Never stop.
40. Find a great mentor, if you can. Thanks, Jerome!

Please add to this list, or create your own using your past experiences!

What Kind of Content Are You Serving?

What kind of content are you trying to serve to your customers?
And what does it say about you?

Where does your organization fit in the content process maturity model?

Almost every organization creates content, but only a few value their content enough to invest in it. Which, of course, creates a Catch 22: Not valuing your content creates content of no value.

Where does your organization fit in this maturity model? And what are your excuses for not climbing higher up the quality-content ladder?

I’ve adapted the table below from JoAnn Hackos’s “Information Process Maturity Model”. If you’d like a more in-depth look at this model, or almost anything to do with document product and project management, I highly recommend her excellent book, Information Development: Managing Your Documentation Projects, Portfolio, and People.

Thanks for the inspiration, JoAnn!

(If the image below is too small to read, just click on it and then enlarge the image.)