UX Newsletter: Content is king…sometimes
To add content, or not to add content, that is the question.
We live in the age of content. You don’t have to look far – just open up instagram to see brands relying on ads made by influencers or museums created just so people can take selfies in pre-styled rooms. It’s not wonder companies want to invest in visually engaging and informative content – but the key is knowing and defining a content strategy that performs.
“Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.” That means we can’t just assume what the customer needs, when they need it and if they found it helpful. The strategy of content is understanding what gaps are in the journey, what content can help close those gaps, how will we create and serve that content? It’s an integral part of the customer experience and one that requires customer input.
Volume 10
Kristina Halvorson literally wrote the book on Content Strategy and in this month’s newsletter she’ll walk through the guidelines of creating content that works for companies but serves the customer’s needs. We’ll also explore how cross team collaboration, partnership and KPI analysis serve the enhancement of these strategies.
Defining content
10 years ago Kristina Halvorson wrote one of the first – and earliest, most notable – articles on content strategy for web that still holds true today. If you are trying to learn how to critically think about building content then this article (“The Discipline of Content Strategy“) is a must-read. The main difference between content that performs and content that impedes? It’s knowing when, what and where to serve the customer. How do we find it out? I’ll let Kristina explain.
United we stand
UX industry leader, Jared Spool in Content and Design Are Inseparable Work Partners explains how the process of creating purposeful content is dependent on removing the divide between digital designers and the content creators. “[C]ontent creation and management cannot be a separate endeavor from design creation and management…We need to inseparably integrate the two, structurally and organizationally, to create great experiences.”
Make and measure
As we discussed earlier, the “publication and governance” of content is a defining part of content strategy. The organization and management of content must be considered and prioritized in order to serve the customer a cohesive message. In the article, “How To Deliver Large-Scale Projects Using A Content Hub Strategy” by Sam Wright walks us through how his company proposes “content hubs” for large scale projects to help organize and measure success of content implementation.
Conference features
Finally, I wanted to share Rachael Mullins excellent summary from the UX Australia 2018 conference: All the content things from UX Australia 2018. This post is full of great links to presentations, videos, and articles from industry leaders and successful strategists.
Featured UX
Spotify Behind The Lyrics
One interesting example of content is Spotify and GENIUS’ Behind the Lyrics feature. Here they harken back to VH1’s Pop Up Video, which was a tv show that featured fun facts in bubbles as a music video played. In the Behind the Lyrics feature, a user listening to a song can swipe up to learn more about the information behind the song, and see some song lyrics.
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The UX Newsletter is a monthly email that serves up my favorite UX articles. Each month I feature 4 articles or videos and share great tutorials for those interested in learning more.
Feature Image is a collage sourced from various images found on these Pinterest Boards.