Talk and workshop with startups at JAAGA creative, Bangalore
Content strategy is an integral part of user experience design life cycle which is mostly neglected or treated as secondary. While there is a lot of time spent on scope and structure plane the content is mostly not thought about.
So what is content strategy? you might find different definitions across the internet but putting that in easy words, content strategy is nothing but putting the right content to right context for the right audience in the right place.
Imagine a piece of chocolate truffle cake with three layers. The base is nothing but the balance between what the user wants to read and what the business wants them to read. The middle layer is nothing but establishing the proper context for the content and the top layer is about evaluating the structure of that content, the placement, the tone of voice, the amount of content.
The first step in creating a good content strategy is being crystal clear about your persona. One could start by creating a persona by including basics like:
- How much does your audience know about your industry/subject/etc?
- What are their pain points (as it relates to your business)?
- What are their current solutions to that pain point? What questions do they need answered about it?
- What content do they regularly consume (as it relates to your business/industry?)
- What channels do they most use to find that content?
- What types of content do they like the best? Videos? Blogs? Emails? What kinds do they dislike?
Once you have identified the correct audience, every piece of content can be put through a funnel of 7 levels (usefulness, usability, accessibility, credibility, findability, valuable, desirability) which could give an absolute, accurate content for the given personas. This funnel evaluates the content to make it apt for the project requirement document, ease of use, emotional connect, navigable & locatable, align with different personas, builds some level of user trust and give returns to business.
The other thing that needs to be thought about is the CONTENT THROW (how much content, how and when). While structure, hierarchy, relevance and availability are one part of the content strategy, the standard, guideline and the content consistency are the other.Once you start seeing patterns in the content that the audience is engaging with. You could come up with a core strategy statement that could ensure consistancy of the content.
It is important that if not all some of these points are brought into consideration while designing the overall experience strategy. The exercises of content mapping and content modelling would help define a better scope and a better structure leading to a better user experience for the consumer and for the business.