Dan, as I understand it, a “content strategy” is an approach to Web development where you focus on the information the customer needs to successfully achieve the various tasks they must (or may) do with you. Here’s a quick example of a site that was designed without a content approach, taken from a site I reviewed at the webmaster’s request for World Usability Day last year: The governmental agency that produced this website had an Office of Outreach or some such. Anyway, “outreach” was prominent in the links to the page and the page’s title. “Great!” I thought. “This is where groups they serve can tap into programs that reach out to them — or perhaps they can get resources they themselves can use to reach out to their own audiences.”

Wrong! Instead I was taken to a page that said, basically, “Our Office of Outreach is highly effective in reaching out to local governments and nonprofits with its many outreach programs. In fact, we are one of the most outreachingest agencies you will find. If you need us to reach out to you, you will find that our Office of Outreach is the place to contact to get the outreach you need. In the past year, we have reached out to eleventy-seven programs in communities across the nation.”

And so on.

Not a design based on a content strategy.

Under a content strategy, they would have identified all of the materials and other information that people who could benefit from the services of their office might need, and then they would have developed a set of pages that featured those items.

And their website would have reached out to me so well that I wouldn’t need them to tell me how effective their outreach programs are.

Kristina’s book presents the steps to take in pursuing a content strategy. Read it for a more complete understanding of what content strategy is and how it works.If you read her book, you will have a greater understanding of the field.

I hope to see you in the book club August 17!

Cliff

We had some discussion over the last couple of years of extending our open meetings with a live videostream but have decided against it for now. One of the core elements of our book club is creating an opportunity for the local community to learn from one another by meeting in person in a social setting, moving conversations out of the digital sphere. Toronto is fortunate to have a large, active UX community that makes this possible but other places do not and I think that’s where the UIE Book Club becomes invaluable.

I hope that the UIE Book Club is at least as successful as Toronto’s has been! I know that it will be an excellent experience given the book choice and author. Best wishes for the first webcast.

-K