Be proactive about non-text content maintenance.
In an ideal world, all website maintenance decisions happen as a result of your own company’s preferences, and on a reasonable timeline. But even if you’re not living in that ideal world you can still protect yourself. Here’s how:

• Retain source and working files from content partners
• Consider hosting options carefully, and make a contingency plan
• Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows

Retain source and working files from content partners.
Anyone with a computer can edit a text file, regardless of its source. By contrast, editing audio, video, and Flash-based elements requires access to the original files and the sophisticated software used to create them.

It’s harder to guarantee that access if you’ve outsourced the content. Unless you make sure to get a complete handoff of all original source files you can get stuck editing these elements in other programs, to the detriment of file quality. (For example, video and graphics are best edited at the highest resolution, then rendered/exported/converted to the resolution at which people will ultimately use it.)

Consider hosting options carefully and make a contingency plan.
To complicate matters, content producers often choose to host their content on third-party platforms. Third-party video hosting services (e.g., YouTube) attract content producers by offering APIs, advanced embedding features, HD quality, and free bandwidth.

Using such providers may streamline your process initially, but also requires handing over a certain amount of control. (Companies get acquired, business plans evolve, etc.) If a change is made to the initial agreement, the API, or even the display/delivery of your content, you may be forced to take your content elsewhere.

Disruptions resulting from external partners take time and resources away from your day-to-day business functions. They also affect the user experience. (Think of a video-centric page missing its videos. Yikes!)

Concerns about hosting problems can be easily mitigated by retaining those high-resolution versions and their attendant metadata. With those in hand, upload to other suitable hosting services will be a snap.

Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows.
Content workflows need to take into account the complexities of editing non-text content.  This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in successfully making both pre- and post-publishing changes to non-text content:

(click to enlarge)

Incorporating these guidelines into your site maintenance plan will help ensure your non-text content is working as hard as it can to keep users engaged and coming back for more.

There’s a reason why we ask these questions. Because it’s not just irritating for web users to find stale content online. Sometimes it can mean the difference between a successful family vacation and a wasted afternoon …

Recently, my husband and I headed to Iowa with my parents for a cousin’s wedding. My Dad proposed we stop at a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright on the way back.

Three hours out of the way later, we arrived to a closed gate. The sign read: “Will open Memorial Day weekend.”

This had to be a mistake! The Iowa Department of Natural Resources website told us tours start May 1. We called the house. Sure enough, opening hours had been changed, but the website had not been updated.    

We got back in the car, turned around and headed home. This little mishap meant I spent SIX (6) EXTRA HOURS IN THE CAR WITH MY PARENTS.

Website owners, please make sure your content is accurate. Take the time to think about where it’s coming from, who will update it (and how often), whether you have the resources available to support it, why it’s being included in the first place, and how it will help your users accomplish their goals.

You might not hear or see your users, but we’re out there, trusting you’ve put some smart thinking behind the words we see on our screen. Don’t let us down.

Source: iowadnr.gov

The house I never got to see – Cedar Rock, the Walter residence, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Converting your information to an infographic benefits your users by communicating your message in a visually compelling form. Whether they show up in internal deliverables or online, infographics seem to get everyone excited. Whenever I'm ready to create a new graphic, I use these resources for ideas and inspiration.

Great Lists from other sites
1.  Smashing Magazine They've done several infographic round-up posts, but this is the one I keep going back to.
2.  Six Revisions There's a strong consumption theme running through this collection. I've sent the coffee and beer graphics around to family and friends on more than one occasion.
3.  Blog of Francesco Mugnai 50 great infographics. Nothing else. 

 Sites dedicated to Infographics
4.  Flowing Data  Great graphics and advice about how to create them. Props to Nathan Yau .
5.  Chart Porn There's a humor category. (swoon)
6.  Cool Infographics  Lots of resources for creating graphics as well as examples. Check out the tips for designing infographics
7.  We love Datavis The browsing on this one is not my favorite (the thumbnails are tough to decipher without clicking), but the graphics they pick are really strong.
8.  How Toons Cartoons are not infographics in the traditional sense, but these are so entertaining I had to include this example.

 Print Infographics
9.  Feltron Annual Report Nicholas Felton does a report every year. It’s pretty amazing.
10.  Good Magazine You know about Good, right? No? Just go there. Go there NOW. 

 Bonus – Interactive graphics!
I know I've already named 10, but I have to end with my all-time favorite interactive infographic. It's the New York Times Olympic Medal count – there's one for the Summer and Winter. They’re both so amazing, I love to go back to them even when it's not an Olympic year.

But wait. Don’t congratulate yourself just yet. Because simply putting content on a page doesn't guarantee users will find it. It could be hidden in a "content blind spot."

What’s a content blind spot?
Content blind spots occur when the information is there, but users can’t see it. In general, users scan and skip content, looking for clues before committing to read. But if the clues are missing, users won’t find the content.

Problems that prevent users from finding content include:

• Information is not where users expect to find it, based on past experiences on that website or the web in general
• Links do not look like links (e.g., link text not underlined or not blue)
• Copy is “hidden” inside a graphic element or photograph
• Page titles and links do not use relevant keywords or common user terms

Just like those little Smart Cars that hide in your Prius’s blind spot on the freeway, content stays unseen until someone changes their position. While driving, that means you or the Smart Car needs to speed up, slow down, or change lanes. Likewise, content stays hidden in a blind spot until either the user changes their approach to accessing the information, or you change the way it’s displayed.

What it’s like to experience the content blind spot
While doing our taxes, my husband asked me how much interest I paid on my student loan in 2009. I went to WellsFargo.com to find out.

I get all my bank-related documents electronically, so I knew right where to find that sort of information—or so I thought. I logged in to my student loan and went to the Statements & Documents tab. Once there, I saw a link called “Available Tax Documents.” Bingo.

Wrong. I went from feeling triumphant to confused within seconds—or however long it took a “Tax document not available online” error message to load.

After a few more failed attempts, I called customer service. A friendly representative walked me through the exact same process I had just gone through. I got the same error message. She was confused. I was confused. She transferred me to another department. The call was disconnected mid-Muzak stream. I was fuming.

I gave up. But my husband was convinced the information had to be online. I handed him my laptop, and wished him luck.

He found the information in two seconds.

How the content snuck into my blind spot
I totally missed seeing my 2009 tax info because I had expected to find it in the Statements & Documents tab. Then, the tab rewarded my incorrect assumption by providing an “Available Tax Documents” link.

I didn’t even look for the information on the Account Activity page. Why? Because I was used to looking at a similar page for my checking account, and there is no “interest paid” information there. It’s just a summary of my balance. So why would I look on that page for interest information on my student loan account?

How to avoid the content blind spot
My experience is just one example of how content can “hide” from your user. To avoid this type of content blind spot:

• Be consistent in where you put similar pieces of content throughout the site
• Use relevant keywords and user terminology—especially when labeling links and navigation
• Don’t mislead users with links that don’t deliver what they promise

If you put content in your users’ blind spot, they’ll leave your website feeling angry, confused, and frustrated. And without the information they needed. Not everyone has a husband with eagle eyes, you know?

As it has been said, content strategy plans for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content. For a website, certainly. But for the creation of a mixtape?

For those unfamiliar, a mixtape:

• Is a compilation of songs (just as websites are collections of content)
• Created for a specific someone (consider your audience)
• Communicates a specific message (in service of business objectives)
• Should elicit a particular response (meet user needs/assist in task completion)

Although they can now be a collection of downloads, “mixtape” is a throwback to their heyday in the 1980s when they were cassettes. Later, they took the form of burned CDs, then mp3 playlists.

For those unfamiliar, a review of some basic tenets of content strategy:

• Analysis: Objectives defined, assumptions and risks noted, success metrics established. Account for internal and external forces that might influence them.
• Audit: A quantitative or qualitative review of your current content landscape.
• Strategy: Actionable, achievable recommendations. Includes editorial workflows, calendars, messaging hierarchy, content types, formats, plus much more!

First is analysis. "What do I want to do with this website (or mixtape)?" Surely you've a recipient in mind. Otherwise, you wouldn't be making a website (or mixtape), right? This goes hand in hand with the objectives and message. All websites (and mixtapes) need clear objectives. They can both do many, many things, but a focused approach will make their creation and delivery much easier.

The objective of creating a mixtape might be to musically convince the recipient that you are indeed cool, or in love, or sorry, or over them (or in rare cases, all of the above). Focus on a theme and/or purpose for the mixtape, give it a title, and dig in.

To put together a website (or mixtape), you'll need source content (songs, in this case). Now would be a good time to perform a qualitative content audit. The audit should note what content (here, your music collection) is currently available, and if it is usable.

Websites brimming with content that is redundant, outdated, and trivial are frustrating and often impossible to use. Broken links, five year old “news” articles, and duplicative pages get in the way of achieving objectives. An audit helps to determine what can stay and what gets the boot.

The same applies for the content for your mixtape. For example, your Bee Gees 8-tracks won't make it onto a mixtape if you don't have an 8-track player. Is that vinyl LP copy of "Thriller" too scratched to use? Did the tape deck in your friend's Camaro eat your copy of Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet," rendering "Wanted Dead or Alive" more dead than alive? Perhaps your computer hard drive crashed, corrupting all of your Justin Bieber downloads.

On this mixtape, you might choose to include some content (songs) you don’t actually have in your collection. How will you decide where to get it? The provider of that content will be selected on the basis of what best suits your needs. For instance, you may already have an ongoing relationship with a content provider. Is it the funny-smelling record store down the street? Amazon.com or iTunes? You might also pick a place all your friends are raving about. Or you might avoid one your parents happen to frequent.

With source content in hand, selecting the songs from the pool begins the mixtape editorial workflow. These questions will help you get started:

• Does this content (or song) support the overall message?
• Does it make sense in this context? (Not everyone will “get” your raga references.)
• Does its place next to other selections make for a pleasing experience?
• Will it fit in the remaining time on side B of the cassette?

Make sure that the content (song selection) is relevant to the lucky recipient/user. Putting punk songs and opera and hip-hop tracks one right after the next might be jarring for some, but not for others.

Remember: Stay true to the focus of the theme, consider the recipient, and assert your coolness.

A few additional tips:

• Create your mix with the end user in mind (be aware of their pop culture knowledge).
• Clearly state the title.
• Write the title and track list in a language they can read (as opposed to Esperanto. Or Klingon.)
• If you are making a cassette, make sure they have a cassette player.

The associated “metadata” (in this case, title, track list, and any totally sweet, custom artwork) completes the package. The tone and voice of the title and artwork are all additional opportunities to continue the theme and message of the mixtape. The track list rounds out the experience by providing a reference to the greatness you've compiled. If you follow these important rules, your final product will be so much more than the consumable tape or CD alone.  

Just like creating a mixtape is more than slapping a couple of songs together haphazardly on a cassette, creating websites with useful, usable content is more than just slapping words on a page. Taking the time and effort to carefully go through these processes will produce an end result that will make your website users happy (or your mixtape listeners happy).

Two days later you get the document back. You open it. 

MAMA SAY WHAAAATTTTT?! 

• Help users connect with the content
• Help users understand the content
• Identify who owns the content
• Make writing the content easier