developing a mobile content strategy for the national cancer institute: a case study

Developing a Mobile

Content Strategy for the

National Cancer Institute

Lakshmi Grama, M.A., M.L.S

Senior Digital Content Strategist

lgrama@mail.nih.gov

National Cancer Institute

• Part of the National

Institutes of Health

• Nation’s premier

cancer research

agency

• Legislative mandate

to communicate the

results of research

Jumping on the Mobile

Bandwagon?

User Research & Analytics

Bored now

Repetitive Now

Urgent Now

What Research Told Us

• Patients and their caregivers were

more likely to access our content on

mobile devices

• Health professionals were interested

but we may not be their primary

source of information in a point of

care context

• Scientific researchers really were not

interested in our content in a mobile

context

What Content ?

NCI Fact Sheets, 82602, 21%

PDQ Adult Treatment, 72228,

18%

Cancer Types, 54973, 14%

What You Need to Know, 51699, 13%

Coping with Cancer, 16389, 4%

Cancer Topics (Other), 12908, 3%

PDQ Adult Treatment

(Spanish), 12553, 3%

NCI Home, 11914, 3%

Other, 84534, 21%

The Existential Question for

Mobile

Cancer Apps in the Marketplace

Our Implementation Path

Content Entry and Publication

Content Reuse and Publishing

Our Structured Content

Worked Beautifully

As Did Images in Structured

Content

Adding Structure to Unstructured

Content

Leveraging Metadata

Autosuggest Works on Mobile

Too!

Sharing Our Content is Easy

As Is Connecting With Us

Content Strategy Decisions

• Put content on a “diet”

– Selected the most valuable content for

the mobile context

• Links to non-mobile optimized

content

• Make content sharable

• Developing a governance plan for

ongoing content sharing to mobile

Thanks to Our Great Team for

Making Mobile Happen at NCI