It's time to celebrate the season with family and friends!
Brain Traffic is closing up shop from December 24 through January 1.
We'll be back at it (kind of) on Friday, January 2.
(If you have an urgent request during that time, please call 612-331-6600 x25 and leave a message. Someone will get back to you within 24 hours.)
Now, stop working and go relax, you. All this web content goodness will still be here waiting for you in 2009.
Cheers!
Posted in Around the Office, Brain Traffic
This morning, while looking for a quote from Richard Saul Wurman (the guy who coined the term "information architecture"), I absentmindedly stuck "history of IA" into Google. I got—you guessed it—42,000,000 results on the history of Iowa. This exercise was a good reminder of three things I know to be true:
Posted in Information Architecture
The exclamation point.
Let’s try that again.
The exclamation point!
Much better. Feel the excitement. The exclamation point changes the tone. Just like that! Why, then, are we encouraged to steer clear of this titillating punctuation mark? The exclamation point—known on the street as the screamer and the bang—has a bad rap. In school and at my first corporate communications job, I was warned to never, ever use the bang. It was the four-letter-word of punctuation. Grammar books and professional writerly folk get all prickly at the use of exclamation marks. But why? And does this hold true for web writing, or is this an outdated, print-only restraint?
Posted in Web Writing
Yep. It’s that time of year. My mom just sent me a preview of the annual holiday letter to friends and family. Yet again, this was a good exercise for me to figure out how to tell my family just what it is that I do.
Sounds easy enough, right? I mean, we’re not talking about rocket science here (I leave that up to my sister, the chemist).
Yet, every year, I struggle with developing the holiday letter nugget. Not because I used to write for a living (and obsessively edit and re-edit the letter to make my kitchen remodel sound glamorous), but because there’s a lack of shared vocabulary.
Aunt Carol has never heard of “user experience.” Uncle Mike doesn’t know what separates an “information architect” from the person who built his condo. Pat from across the street isn’t sure how “content” is all that different from designing websites. And the phrase “content strategy” just doesn’t mean anything to Grammie.
So … yeah. Here’s what I’m thinking of sending back to my mom:
As a content strategist, I help clients figure out what their website should say and how it should be said.
In order to do this well, I team up with an information architect, who helps figure out which content should go where.
Together, with the help of a web writer (who’s good at writing copy that works well online), we help businesses make websites that help their customers gather information and complete tasks without any hassle.
Hey, that works! Next year I’ll tackle describing metadata analysis.
Posted in Content Strategy, Information Architecture
Here's a transcript of a recent grammar conversation we had via an all-staff e-mail that was jumpstarted by Angie King (Angie 2.0). It includes such unrelated subjects as manbabies and Vitamin Water.
Posted in Web Writing
When I came to Brain Traffic as Employee #4, communication was refreshingly easy. I could greet the entire company with just one “good morning.” It was really different from the large corporation where I’d previously been employed. A lot of changes took place over the seven years I was there, but one thing never changed: Every annual employee satisfaction survey named communication as a top challenge. Follow-up feedback to the survey results pointed to communication problems between departments. People just didn’t understand the goals or processes of other departments, which created problems when those things affected their work. And it made them crabby. So I was happy thinking the challenge of poor communication was behind me. Except that it wasn’t. Feedback in a vacuum Sabotage? Well, no. More likely these reviewers don’t know what makes good web content and why. They’re involved only because they’re subject matter experts, and their subject is appearing on the site. If our internal contact does a good job explaining the goals of the project to their internal partners, then this problem may be averted. But sometimes there’s a mentality that says, “You don’t need to know about the web project and its goals. Just make sure the information is right.” And there it is: poor communication. The solution is in the meeting At this meeting, we introduce the what, why and how about good web content. We explain why web writing is different from print writing. We talk about the basics of good user experience. We reassure them that our intent is not to one-up, override, or otherwise disregard their input and concerns. We help them see, from the vantage point of the user, why concise content is way better than lengthy, complex jargon. We’re not saying this approach solves all communication problems throughout the web content development process. But it has really helped us: Set expectations Engage content stakeholders Uncover questions or concerns about scope or schedule before everyone’s committed Identify other content providers or reviewers who’d been overlooked before Connect with people in person so that they know there are actual human beings writing their content and receiving their feedback Think it’s too hard to get everyone together at once? Then hold a series of meetings. Get people on the phone. Try as hard as possible to engage everyone who’s going to touch the content as early as possible in your process. Believe me, it’s easier than undoing (and arguing about) uninformed feedback and revisions in the 11th hour of your project.
I didn’t recognize it at first. But there it was in the feedback for projects from large companies. Reviewers we’d never met requested—even demanded—changes that seemed all wrong. For example, they’d turn our succinct, tight writing into ugly, awkward run-ons filled with jargon.
So here’s what we do at Brain Traffic to combat this: At the very beginning of a web project, we have a kick-off meeting with everyone. That means everyone who is going to submit, review, and approve content.
Posted in Content Strategy
While shopping for a Christmas present for my nephew, I came across the message to parents page on the ROBOTGALAXY site. I was surprised (and amused) to read the following:
Wow. This is live, right now.
Here’s another past placeholder faux pas from a Greenpeace press release:
Placeholder copy is just one symptom of a widespread epidemic: In so many website development projects, the lack of established process around content development allows that content to fall through the gaps in a million different ways.
Beyond effective content planning and creation, the entire site needs to be put through a QA process. Make sure someone reads the copy on every single page. If the copy isn’t important enough to be proofed, it isn’t important enough to be published.
Hire someone to do this if you don’t have the resources internally. If you contracted a writer to create your content, have him or her review it on the staging server before you launch the website.
If you’re trying to educate, influence, or inform, it’s important to not look like you just slapped some text up on a page. That’s no way to win trust or influence decisions. Users don’t care that you were on a deadline, and they don’t care that you can fix it later.
Posted in Web Writing
Ever struggle with creating web content that gives your audience exactly what they want? We all do.
At the risk of over-simplifying, I speculate that most of the people you and I write for want the same two things my dogs want:
• Simplicity
• Immediate gratification
Don’t get smart
When I notice I’m spewing industry jargon or trying to be too clever, I consider how my dogs might respond if at dinner time, I replaced the daily phrase “Time to eat” with something like: “The time has come for you to digest some processed rice and lamb rations.”
They might get the point if I said it in a sing-songy voice as we dog people are known to do. But it won’t elicit the stomping in front of the food bowl with a big doggie tongue hanging out response that I’m after.
Website users aren’t impressed with big words that mean the same thing as small ones, nor are they looking for soliloquy. Sure, they’ll understand the flowery copy. But they probably won’t be motivated to take action, even if there is something in it for them.
Don’t tease
I have to admit that I sometimes get a kick out of saying to my dogs, “Want to go for a ride in the car?” when I have no intention of taking them any where. It’s amusing. For me. Not them. At all.
Visitors to our websites don’t think it’s amusing either. Misleading navigational cues and links that promise something they don’t deliver drive people batty.
That’s why the content and information architecture people really need to come together for the good of the pack. Combining our talents, we can create navigation labels, links and other user experience content that clearly tell the audience what they’ll see or do next.
In dog terms, don’t tell them you’re going for a walk when you’re really just taking them outside to pee.
All of this sounds easy, right? Common sense? It is. Even so, I sometimes find myself straying from these basics. That’s why a desk-side picture of my dogs is a good reminder to keep it simple and keep my word.
Woof.
Posted in Web Writing
Here’s the problem, as we see it.
Content ownership and oversight are big challenges within most organizations. And it’s easy to see why. Unless your primary product or service is content, you probably still lack the appropriate infrastructure to support ongoing content creation and maintenance.
Look, we all woke up 15 years ago to discover we were suddenly publishers. No one signed up for it. The Web just made it so. Websites, web apps, email marketing, search marketing … we’re constantly under pressure to produce more content.
And then it’s out there. And with each passing day, our published content becomes (potentially) less relevant, off-brand, off-message. We add more pages and modules wherever we can, whether or not it makes sense. We’re driven by deadlines and internal demands, not the questions that matter: Is this useful? Is it relevant? Will our readers’ needs be met?
So, whose job is it? This content. Who owns it? Who’s responsible?
The real deal: Content ownership is a complex issue.
In any content lifecycle, there are typically several folks who share some responsibility for the content. From request to creation to publication, there are all kinds of cooks in the kitchen:
So, who should have the final say about your website content?
Take a hard look.
It might seem easy to marginalize, say, the CMS team, by proposing that techies shouldn’t be in charge of content. But aren’t they the ones typically responsible for publishing and archiving the content? That’s sort of important. Often, they’re also the folks who end up (by default) writing the metadata that makes your content findable, both by external search engines and your own site’s engine.These things matter.
Maybe brand and marketing should take a back seat. Except, you know, they probably want input over little things like brand voice, messaging, style guide considerations, hierarchy of information, calls to action … right.
How about the web strategy team? Can they let go of ownership? Maybe content isn’t that important to a successful user experience. Oh. Wait. It is.
And finally, the business people, who probably are tasked with reviewing (or even writing) web content on top of the 18 million other things they’re supposed to be doing. We sort of need their input to make sure things are accurate and up to date.
So.
Where should content live?
Content strategy: A new home for content
Content planning, production and oversight need to share a new home base. Content needs infrastructure beyond CMS requirements. It needs to be appropriately scoped and planned for, not thrown together from brochures at the last minute. It needs to be cared for and fed, not just launched and forgotten. It needs ownership and oversight.
It needs to live under the governance of an empowered, collaborative content strategist.
This is a radical call for change within agencies and organizations everywhere. It puts content in the center of the web design process, which, we think, is where it should live.
Because isn’t that what people are looking for online? Content? Not design. Not a user experience. Not that those things don’t matter enormously. Just, perhaps, they shouldn’t be driving the bus.
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We’ll be offering our first Introduction to Web Content Strategy seminar on March 11, 2009. Sign up for our newsletter and be the first to know when registration opens.
Posted in Content Strategy
If you’ve ever seen "The Princess Bride” (and I hope you have), you know those wise words belong to the character Inigo Montoya. This bit is almost as well-known as his introductory greeting.
The word under suspicion is “inconceivable.” And Inigo is correct; the character uses the word incorrectly. In this instance, though, I'll forgive the misstep. 'Cause it's hilarious. And I love that movie.
But in real life, errors like that are not as funny. In fact, they make me cry.
Today, though, I'm weeping with joy. Thanks, Copyblogger, for this little gift:
The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words.
Posted in Web Writing
