masterclass content journeys
TRANSCRIPT
Jantine Geldof, Jesse Grimes & Xander Roozen
Masterclass. October 26, 2016, Amsterdam
Learn how to apply content strategy to customer journeys, enriching one of the best-known
service design deliverables with critically important new layers.
Content Journeys
Part 1: A minimally viable set of content related topics
What this masterclass is not about
What it is when we talk about content
Content has an identity problem 5
Too much? 6
”Every two days now, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003”
Eric Schmidt, 2010Google CEO
Poor
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge”
7
John Naisbitt, 1982
Megatrends
Information overload?
If you…
• …decide you want to buy a new laptop, will you find
the time to research it?
• …decide you want to send your child to the best
school in your area, will you find the time to do the
leg-work?
• …are looking for a job in your career field, will you
find the time to search for it?
8
Content has an identity problem
"Everyone spoke of an information overload, but what there was in fact was a non-information overload."
Richard Saul Wurman,Founder of TED
Content drives the experience 11
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
“At your public library they’ve got these arranged in ways that can make you cry, giggle, hate, wonder, ponder and understand.”
Charles Piccirillo
National Library Week, 1961
“When television is good, nothing - not the theater, not the magazines or
newspapers - nothing is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse.”
12And it always did
Newton N. MinowThe Wasteland Speech, 1961
Digital added extra orders of order
Digital is trivial now
A Content FrameworkFrom The YouTube Playbook
Hero content // Dove Real Beauty Sketches 15
Hero content is big bold push content that grabs immediate attention and generates awareness
Hub content // Bandcamp Weekly 16
Hub content is regularly scheduled pull and bond content designed to engage with consumers throughpassion points and get them coming back to your platform and brand
Hygiene content // Verizon data plans 17
Hygiene content is pull content that allows you to be found on the internet when people are searching for topics related to your category
Micro content // A bank brand shirt in 2016? 18
Micro content // Good afternoon 19
Micro content // High fiving your moment 20
Micro content // Flying with Singapore Airlines 21
However, you are probably not here by choice
• Increasing customer expectations
• Data explosion
• Technology complexity
22
Casual
Quick
Focused
Physical
Organizations have to deal with
Gap
“ Organizations invest tremendous resources on developing the framework for
a great user experience – fabulous design, robust content management
infrastructure.
Yet when it comes to the content itself, there’s often a gap.
The end result is that the value proposition for customers can’t be delivered
because the content is insufficient, inadequate, and inappropriate.”
23
Rahel Bailie
New York Times 24
2009
2012
2014
Weak messages create bad situations*
* Book title by David Shrigley
25
Xander Roozen
This is what I* mean when I say “content strategy”
“We’re talking about holistic experiences and how content enables
experiences that help people succeed at their goals. We care about content
as experience, which is why we focus on standards, voice and tone,
governance, content inventories and audits, workflows, service design,
systems and processes, metadata design, content modelling, delivery
channels, and so on.”
27
* Jonathan Colman
content strategist at Facebook
Just fixing the typos, creating a style guide and maintaining a content calendar?
29
Content fulfils business objectives by meeting audience needs. It can include story, topic, brand elements, voice and
tone
Structure makes content findable and usable for users, and manageable
for/responsive to technology
Workflow creates efficiencies across content properties. It includes roles, processes, tools and team structure
Governance holds people accountable for strategy and success. It includes content policies, standards and guidelines
About people About content
Mailchimp Backstage 28
Identify and express key content relationships
Looking at any given page
• Figure out separate elements and think about
how each element of information will be used.
• Related content items can be linked to or
embedded.
• Example: band, artist and album will each have
their own page.
Note: not everything can and needs to be modelled
30
Content model // Landscape of content types 31
Artist profile
Model inspired by Rachel Lovinger
Album page
SongChart
High level diagram for Allmusic.com
The backbone of a content strategy 32
Product name
Product features
Product images
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Target audience
Business owner
METADATA
….
Publication date
….
Short product description
Good experiences
“You can create good experiences without knowing the content.
What you can’t do is create good experiences without knowing your content structure.”
33
Mark Boulton
Activity 1 – Determining a content model
Part 2: Mapping Content To A User Journey
Scene from ‘Her’ (2013) 38
MoodArtist profile
Album page
SongChart
IKEA Lamp 39
IKEA Home Report // From Wake Up To Take Off (2014) 37
Marley Spoon // Preparation time 38
Preparation time 5 – 10 minutesSkills Easy
Marley Spoon // Kitchen utensils 41
40
In a journey map you will see the interaction of a person with service through touchpoints
Content is experienced through touchpoints too.
Adding content to the journey will give insights that drive the design of the content strategy elements
46
Audit, analysis (Marley Spoon)
User research (IKEA)
Insights (Her)
Journey mapping- including content tracks
Editorial plan, tone & voice guidelines
Content model
Metadata & information architecture
UX component libraries
Requirements for development
Content strategy elements
Journey with content track 49
+ +
A journey, with phases & touchpoints for a persona with content considerations
1. Goal,2. Questions3. Types & formats4. Content depth
Activity 2 – Hands On with a Content Journey
Part 3: Summary & Final Thoughts For The Road
Content journey
“Too often, when an organization looks at design [ process, touchpoint, content ] they do it in the
context of a single interaction, process, or piece of content.
They don’t think in terms of a holistic customer experience. As a result, while they may deliver a
great experience at one touchpoint, the overall experience may still suck.
Content has a significant role to play when we approach the design of the customer experience
holistically. And yet content has long been neglected. It’s time to change that. Content strategy, by
designing experiences with content, can have a significant impact on an organization’s bottom line.”
Joyce Hostyn, 2011
42
What we have learned
Managing content is getting more and more complex, due to rising customer
expectations, data explosion and technology complexity.
Content strategy is a practice encompassing every aspect of content,
including its design, development, analysis, presentation, measurement, evaluation,
production, management, and governance.
A central element of a content strategy is the content model.
The content model helps bring the content strategy to life and takes the business
user into account
Content is experienced through touchpoints too. Content may exist at only one
touchpoint, or at several touchpoints. This experience can only be delivered in a
good and sustainable way when your content is properly structured.
46
47
The idea is that there are processes in nature,
which operate in different timescales and as a
result there is little or no exchange of
energy/mass/information between them.
Stuart Brand transferred this intuition to
buildings and noticed that traditional buildings
were able to adapt because they allowed
“slippage” of layers: i.e. faster layers (services)
were not obstructed by slower ones
(structure).
Pace layering
48Content is King
49Information has no form. Short movie by Maya Design
Sources & inspiration
List* of recommended reading & viewing 51
Rahel Bailie - Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between, business, brand and
benefits (book)
Stuart Brand – How buildings learn (book)
Kristina Halvorson – Content strategy for the web (book)
Colleen Jones – Clout. The art and science of influential web content (book)
Spike Jonze – Her (movie)
Rachel Lovinger – Nimble. A Razorfish report on publishing in the digital age (pdf)
Casey Neistat – www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat (vlog)
Noz Urbina – Content strategy for decision makers (book)
Kathy Wagner – Mapping Content to Customer Journeys (presentation video)
* in alphabetical order
Sources images 52
• Slide 5 - Scribblelive.com, Shutterstock
• Slide 6 - Yukai Du
• Slide 7 - thethingswesay.com
• Slide 8 - Yaroslav Zubko
• Slide 9 - Lovely Creatures
• Slide 18 - Bunq Facebook
• Slide 20 - Mail chimp
• Slide 32 - WoodWing
• Slide 33 - 43 Marley Spoon
• Slide 47 - Stewart Brand
• Slide 48 - Casey Owen Neistat
Questions and discussion
Creatief. Systematisch. Duurzaam.
+31 35 543 1222
Jacob van Lenneplaan 57 3743 AP Baarn
@informaat
Creatief. Systematisch. Duurzaam.
+31 35 543 1222
Jacob van Lenneplaan 57 3743 AP Baarn
@informaat
Creatief. Systematisch. Duurzaam.
+31 35 543 1222
Jacob van Lenneplaan 57 3743 AP Baarn
@informaat
Creatief. Systematisch. Duurzaam.
+31 35 543 1222
Jacob van Lenneplaan 57, 3743 AP Baarn
@informaat
Thank you!
#SDGC16
@informaat Creative. Systematic. Sustainable.