purposes, personas, conversations (ginny redish)

Purposes, Personas, Conversations

Janice (Ginny) Redish, Ph.D.

Redish & Associates, Inc.

Bethesda, Maryland

301−229−3039

[email protected]

www.redish.net October 19, 2012

Chapter 2


© 2012, Janice (Ginny) Redish User Focus 12 Slide 2

Halvorson and Rach, 2012

Develop and follow a content strategy

Content strategy =

Thinking strategically about your content

Aligning content with business goalsAhava Leibtag who blogs athttp://onlineitallmatters.blogspot.com



Content strategy = governance

Content must be

planned

coordinated

reviewed

managed and maintained

removed

Break down those silos!



Content strategy = resources

People

Who will write? edit? illustrate? produce?

What skills do these people need?

Technology

What systems and templates will you use?

How will people be trained to do what they must do?

Flickr cc photo by Rowens27



Content is everything you have on the web site

text

illustrations

charts

graphs

tables

forms

pdfs

videos

podcasts

blogs

forums

other social media

− and in all your other communication channels



Content strategy = messages and more

Messages

Tones

Styles

Right contentin the right amountto the right personat the right timein the right medium

Media



Plan at every level

Of course, content strategy = planning.

Every piece of content also needs a plan.

Answer these 3 questions:

Why? (your purposes)

Who? (your site visitors)

When, why, and how?(your site visitors' conversations)



Why? (Purposes) Align with the agency's overall strategy and goals

Be measurable

Focus on what you wantyour site visitors / readers to do

Be specific

$



Focus on what you want your site visitors to do

to sell lots of shoes

site visitors to buy lots of shoes from us

to inform doctors about the new network

doctors to join our network

to tell people about this topic

answer site visitors questions about this topic

We want



Be specific

http://www.manageyourwriting.com/

Kenneth W. Davis



Who are your site visitors? Name the different groups.

What should you keep in mind about these people? Write down adjectives or phrases.

attitudes

knowledge

context of use

not what content they are looking for − that's the question after this one.

Who? Personas



What is a persona?

a fictional person who realistically representsa major group of site visitors

composite

based on data about demographics goals and tasks contexts of use (environments) values

User profile:• system administrators• guys, 25 – 40 years old• know terminology• on the computer all day

Art

Words like "people""users""site visitors""readers"are all too vague for good conversations.



Persona from Epcor Utilities, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, used with permission



Site visitors come with their own goals, tasks, scenarios, = conversations.

Visualize the persona coming to your content.

When? Why? How? Conversations



Let's apply this planning to a real example



My current draft revision



Ginny Redish

[email protected]

www.redish.net

@GinnyRedish

Ginny Redish

Thank you

2nd editionAugust 2012

Questions? Comments?

Purposes, Personas, Conversations

purposes, personas, conversations (ginny redish)

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