Content is King
I’ve noticed a consistent neglect of content from project teams and clients. Too often content writing and implementation is pushed to the very last task in a project lifecycle. Designers don’t want to write content, and clients often don’t want to pay for someone else to write it, so we end up with marginalized web content that is neither useful or usable.
Creating web content can be messy, complicated, and expensive but the value it delivers to our clients is paramount. Our ability to create beautiful artifacts is meaningless if we can’t effectively communicate with our customers with clarity and brevity.
Content strategy (planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content) can be integrated with our User Experience Design Model when relevant. Like any process model, the necessity and role of each discipline varies on the scope of a project, but we want to emphasize the value an impactful content experience adds to our work.
Some of the values that content strategy encourage include:
- Defining key themes and messages
- Creating recommended topics to be covered
- Justifying content purpose and value
- Unifying brand messaging through guidance and governance
- Revealing content gaps through analysis
- Organizing metadata frameworks and related content attributes,
- Increasing findability through search engine optimization (SEO)
The web is built for content. The best web experiences are designed for communicative concepts that speak to audiences in a meaningful and useful way. Deft committed to treating content as a critical asset, worthy of strategic planning and investment in order to better our clients digital communications and create useful and usable interactive experiences for their audiences.
Referred articles:
A List Apart, The Discipline of Content Strategy
UX Magazine, Content Strategy and UX: A Modern Love Story