I'm reading a lot of terrific ideas here, but they are all proposed TACTICS.
Without a unifying content strategy, these tactics will inevitably be taken on as one-off efforts, which result in the same inconsistencies and redundancies that exist today.
Over the years, we have all attempted to “fix” our content with visual rebrands, website redesigns, new CMS technology, rewrites, and other tactical approaches. None of these things actually serve the CONTENT, itself. You can’t cram content into technology; technology must serve the content. You can’t build a better user experience for bad content; it’s inherently impossible to do so. You can’t redesign the home page and hope that it will make the terrible IA and content behind it more palatable. You can’t keep waiting to deal with content in the eleventh hour, only to launch with what you had and hope to fix it later. It never happens.
A holistic content strategy will provide an articulate, shared vision across all agencies about how content will help them fulfill their core missions as well as serve their audience needs.
That core strategy must exist in order to inform the following:
- Guidelines that help project owners and stakeholders to ask **the right questions** about content (what you have, what you need and WHY, who is responsible, what the impacts are on how content is currently created and consumed). These questions must always be asked as early in any project process as possible, rather than being dealt with in the eleventh hour.
- Consistent, effective processes for identifying, creating and approving content SUBSTANCER: what content should be about (topics, tasks), who it is for, and how it should sound (voice, tone, readability)
- A solid, **content-focused** approach to creating STRUCTURE: how content is organized, structured, and accessed. This is critically important now as we face complex, ever-changing multi-platform and multi-channel requirements. Without the appropriate metadata schema and tagging processes, our content will continue to be trapped in PDFs and separate HTML pages. This isn’t sustainable, as we can’t be constantly recreating that content for mobile, tablet, and other future platforms.
- A process for designing and managing WORKFLOW. Current content is distributed across multiple siloes within each agency and department. Who is responsible for wrangling it all? What are the appropriate roles, responsibilities and skillsets for creating and managing content over time? How does content flow through the workplace? What happens to content once it has been published or delivered?
- Shared policies, standards, and guidelines for content GOVERNANCE. This is the most often overlooked component when it comes to content, and it should be planned for up front. Not only must there be well-documented and well-communicated policies and guidelines for content, but there must also be an internal infrastructure that supports the ongoing oversight of content. How often do we audit and update content? Who are the people that have a say in decisions about content and content strategy? Who is empowered to say “no”?
Content strategy isn’t a new practice, but it has been receiving an enormous amount of attention over the past two years. Why? Because it is the only way we will ever be able to deliver the content our audiences deserve: usable, relevant, timely, engaging, easy-to-understand content that they can actually use. Our government MUST invest in this process in order to ensure ongoing improvement of their interactive content in the years to come.
More resources:
http:// knol.google.com/k/content-strategy
http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/complete-beginners-guide-to-content-strategy/
- Kristina Halvorson
CEO, Brain Traffic
Author, Content Strategy for the Web
Comments (15)
Completely agree...I'm a groupie of yours, Kristina. The hardest thing for our agency is getting the buyin across components that content strategy is important and getting folks to support ours (our governance structures is fleshing out so many concurrent issues, that we haven't quite gotten there yet).
Clicking "agree" didn't seem like enough, so I'm commenting to say "hear hear!" Especially on the recognition that you can't have content strategy without clear and strong governance.
Fully agree with Kristina when she says that it's all about the content. People can get so distracted by the shiny box which is the web and forget that they actually need to fill it with something. In our organisation we have alas seen many new web projects starting with design mockups of the homepage before anyone has thought about content or IA.
Great post. Much more than just throwing an idea out the, you've given a great intro to the specialization.
As a consumer I can't agree more! There's a lot of stuff on the websites that many people don't care about. Come up with a list and survey consumers like me. Do you know what people really want? You can use some statistics that are already there (number of contacts about an issue, phone calls, etc.) but asking through a short, useful survey may also help prioritize.
While I agree in spirit I'm wondering if the politics involved would result in something that's ultimately unusable - or perhaps more likely, never gets implemented.
For instance I know someone at JPL who feels that conversion to ISO 9000 has created more problems than it has solved - and some of the problems it was aiming to solve were "imaginary" to begin with.
So, +1 on Content Strategy but it needs to be implemented very carefully to align content requirements of individual agencies.
Part of the reason people focus on tactics is because there is a lot of room for improvement in that area. The tactical fixes will be much easier, in many cases, than the strategic fixes.
I don't know that throwing a blanket over the whole federal government strategy is the answer. Initially individual departments and agencies would be well served consolidating their web presence under their own strategy that can be guided by federal government best practices.
Thoughtful and thought–provoking.
I do disagree with the opening, however. Many of the posts here are more than tactics.
I disagree with the title, as well. "Create a (singular) federal website content strategy" underestimates the scope of the challenge. The strategies that the government uses will not be one size fits all, if the government is to do its jobs well.
Government has unique responsibilities to serve a wider audience than any private entity has. A business can target customers, potential customers, and its shareholders. A lobbyist or activist organization can target its sympathizers and its hoped–for converts. Each of these types of organizations can allow itself to exercise certain biases that would be (and rightfully so) denied to a federal web site. Each of these organizations can safely ignore the desires of large swaths of the population who will not interact with them. Each of them can succeed while working with a fraction of the content that the government must address.
The government of the U.S. of A. must serve the *general* public. Some people need to know detailed history of particular infrastructure projects. Some people need programmatic access to data on tides and temperatures. Some people need to know identities of large campaign donors. Some people need rigorous description of mathematical models and forecasting techniques. Some people need to have access to first–hand accounts from World War I.
A single IA will not work across the complete set of requirements for the government's web presence. One strategy to rule them all will not work. There are a great many best practices, tactics, if you like, that can apply in a great many of the government's efforts. There are strategic principles (as Kristina's post illustrates) that can guide a number of efforts to meet a number of missions.
Yes, there is a real need in the government for strategic thinking on modern information management methods in meeting government's mission. There are also real efforts underway, with successes and failures, kudos and lessons learned. It's messy, but it's progress. This site and these conversations are part of the messy process and progress. They're not the first and won't be the last.
A holistic approach does not mean it has to be a uniform approach. I see strategy and tactics as a cyclical process of evolution. Strategy must come first in order to know which tactics are relevant. However, there are already many government sites in existence. Some tactical fixes are low hanging fruit.
I am not sure if all government organizations would fit within a holistic approach. But I do agree with the idea of looking for ways to identify a cross-agency high-level strategy as Kristina suggests.
I am reminder of the story of the difference between a manager and a leader. The manager and the leader are in the jungle and the manager is doing every thing possible to get the workers to cut down more trees faster. The leader climbs to the top of a tree and says "Stop! Wrong jungle!".
I believe an overarching strategy can be defined in a flexible way. It should leverage strategic process and knowledge while allow cross-agency collaboration and the ability for differet agencies to meet their unique purposes.
As we work on content strategy issues on a public sector site, we refer to Kristina's work often for guidance. But we find a very different set of problems in public sector web development. I would like to see more development of these differences based on experience and successes, and see a robust public sector content strategy outline emerge. Having said that, any coherent approach to content strategy across federal websites would be an improvement, and very compatible with the Plain Language initiatives that have shown great promise. Thanks.
It's great to see an idea linked to action. I also want to underscore the need to always keep the end user in mind. To design federal websites with out that essential design feature is a waste of time and money. There is concern that while we have new websites, the public engagement and participation part is lagging badly.
I want to see congruence, efficiency, clear and simple language and public sector sites well designed and easy to use. Additionally, I want to see each site have sections for feedback which is actively monitored. I doubt the best designs will emerge the first time out and prototyping to make sure intended purpose is met is essential.
Please deliver this website to our emails daily and arrange them by popularity of votes. Again please prioritize according to needs and wants of our government
I made this point also, specifically to address public education on League of Innovative Schools on IdeaScale. http://digitalpromise.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Open-Online-Learning-Repository/50386-15655 What do you think?
The "guts" of a strategy should be based on the answer to this question: why communicate? If we can't answer that question with a clear purpose and audience/users (i.e., what do we want to say to whom, what do people want us to say, what do people want to say to us?), then the rest of the questions about a web site aren't that important. See my comment on treating web sites as communication channels.
Sounds like a good idea, but there are several groups in our agency promoting web issues and practice and it seems to me that they are working in isolation from each other. Building a strategy seems futile here.