Organizing Content for the Web

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Organizing Contentfor the Web

• Shelley Herron
• Greg Goldman
• Portal Services, ACT
• June. 18, 2008

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Intros/Organization
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Introductions

• Name
• Department
• Briefly describe
• what you do
• why you are here today

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Why do we have toorganize content, anyway?

• Believe it or not, were all learning to be
  better librarians
• With freedom to publish comes responsibility to
  organize

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Its like planning a trip

• Figure out where you are going.
• Choose the places youd like to see most.
• Make arrangements for getting there, staying
  there, and leaving there.

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You are the tour guide

• Think about it from a visitor perspective
• What do they want to see most?
• How do they get from place to place?
• What questions do they have?
• If you cant make them happy, they wont come
  back.

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Explore how other sites organize

• HM (www.hm.com)
• Find what they sell.
• Clos Du Val (www.closduval.com)
• Find the full list of wines they make and sell.
• American Olean (www.americanolean.com)
• Look for tile for your bathroom.
• The Vatican (www.vatican.va)
• Find the complete list of popes.

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A few good examples

• Usability.gov (www.usability.gov)
• Simple, concise
• All content has a purpose, task driven
• Each page drives you to the next with clear
  expectations
• U.S. Dept. of Education (http//www.ed.gov)
• Nav structured for both task and audience
• Parents tab short and purposeful content
• Short descriptions

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Audience Analysis

• We have identified the userand it is not us.

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Audience Analysis

• Who are they?
• What are their goals?
• Why should they come to your web site?

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Facts about audiences

• Theyre in a hurry
• A user will decide whether or not to stay on your
  page within 4 seconds.
• Examples
• http//www.1amp.com
• http//producten.hema.nl

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Facts about audiences

• Theyre scanners
• Bold headings, larger fonts, links, numerals, and
  new paragraphs catch their eye

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Nebraska History FactsReading exercise, part 1

• Look at the following slide about Nebraska
  history and try to remember as many key people
  and events as you can.
• You have 10 seconds.

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Nebraska History Facts

• Nebraskas early history is rich and
  fascinating.  Several key individuals, peoples
  and events from long ago helped to advance
  Nebraska toward statehood.
•  
• For centuries before white explorers arrived,
  Native American tribes lived in Nebraska.  Some
  were peaceful tribes, and prospered by farming
  and hunting along the region's plentiful rivers. 
  Although the Pawnees fought with other Indian
  tribes, they were friendly with white settlers.
  Western Nebraska was the home of the Arapaho,
  Cheyenne, and Comanche Indians. These intriguing
  tribes, which built no villages and lived in
  tepees, lived by hunting buffalo.
• In 1662, French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier
  traveled down the mighty Mississippi River to its
  mouth. He claimed large tracts of land
  surrounding the river for France. The fertile
  land, which included Nebraska, was named
  "Louisiana," in honor of French King Louis XIV. 
  During the 1690s and early 1700s, French traders
  and trappers enthusiastically made the Louisiana
  region their home.
• Spain objected to France's presence in the
  regions, which Spain also claimed. In 1720, a
  Spanish expedition of 45 soldiers bravely marched
  into Nebraska, intending to remove the French. In
  1763, at the close of the Seven Years' War in
  Europe, France gave up all claims east of the
  Mississippi River to England and west of the
  Mississippi to Spain. However, French fur traders
  continued to flourish in Nebraska.  In 1800,
  French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to
  return the Louisiana Territory to France. He then
  sold the entire territory, which included
  Nebraska, to the United States in 1803!
• The first American expedition to visit Nebraska,
  in 1804, was led by the distinguished Meriwether
  Lewis and William Clark.  They traveled up the
  picturesque Missouri River and explored the
  state's eastern edge.

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Times up

• What do you remember?
• What were some key people and events?

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Nebraska History FactsReading exercise, part 2

• Look at the following slide about Nebraska
  history and try to remember as many key people
  and events as you can.
• You have 5 seconds.

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Nebraska History Facts

• Several key individuals, peoples and events
  helped to advance Nebraska toward statehood.
•  
• Native Americans
• For centuries before white explorers arrived,
  Native American tribes lived in
  Nebraska. Although the Pawnees fought with other
  Indian tribes, they were friendly with white
  settlers. Western Nebraska was the home of the
  Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Comanche Indians, who
  lived in tepees and hunted buffalo.
• French Explorers and Spanish Claims
• In 1662, French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier
  claimed large tracts of land surrounding the
  Mississippi River for France. During the 1690s
  and early 1700s, French fur traders and trappers
  moved to the region.
• Spain objected to France's presence in the
  region, which Spain also claimed. In 1763, at the
  close of the Seven Years' War in Europe, France
  gave up all claims east of the Mississippi River
  to England and west of the Mississippi to
  Spain. But French fur traders continued to
  operate in Nebraska. In 1800, French ruler
  Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to return the
  territory, including Nebraska, to France. He then
  sold it as part of the Louisiana Purchase to the
  United States in 1803.
• Americans and the Great Migration
• The first American expedition to visit Nebraska
  was led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in
  1804. They traveled up the Missouri River and
  explored the state's eastern edge.

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Times up

• What do you remember?
• What were some key people and events?

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Facts about audiences

• They have no patience for glitz
• They click off Flash demos (Skip Intro)
• They are annoyed by too much movement
• They close pages that take too long to download
• Example http//www.miniusa.com
  http//www.augsburg.edu

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Facts about audiences

• Navigation or Search
• Some will find your content through navigation
• Some will find your content through search
• You have to plan for both ways

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Facts about audiences

• They dont care about you
• The web is a selfish place Most people have
  absolutely no interest in links such as What we
  do and Who we are. They only care about what
  you can do for them.
• Gerry McGovern,
• Web Content Management Expert

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Whos your audience?

• Who are UCSD audiences?
• Prospective students
• Current students
• Parents and families
• Faculty
• Staff
• Alumni
• Visitors
• Friends, donors
• Potential employees

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What do you know about them?

• Demographics
• Technology
• Web Use
• Lifestyle
• Roles
• Goals

• Needs
• Desires
• Knowledge
• Usage Trends
• Tasks

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Exercise 1

• Audience analysis user profile building

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Content Analysis

• What is the killer content?
• Why should your audience come back?
• How do you arrange your content so it makes sense
  to your audience?

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Ways to organize content

• Exact
• Alphabetically (white pages)
• Chronologically (press releases)
• Geographically (travel)
• Ambiguous
• By task (e-commerce)
• By audience (clothing, toy stores)
• By topic (yellow pages, course catalog)
• Hybrids

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How do you make it easier for people to find
things?

• Lets look at user behavior
• Think about how we look for things we need
• Think about how all animals look for things they
  need

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Youre on the hunt

• You come to a place
• Your senses are on alert
• Youre scanning
• Looking for a clue
• And then

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Youre on the hunt

• you find something interesting

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Designing for the Scent of Information

• Just like a fox in a forest, users will be most
  successful when they pick up a strong scent.

• -- Jared Spool
• User Interface Engineering
• http//www.uie.com

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Conventional web design

• Home page is the center of the universe

Services
Support
Home Page
About Us
News
Events
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Conventional design

• Asks the wrong questions
• What clever names do we want to call our
  sections?
• Where are all the places a user might want to go?
• How do we make users understand our agenda?
• Failure comes in thinking about the structure
  before the content
• Examples FAQs, Mission Statement

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Scent design

• Content must rule

Services
Support
Content
About Us
News
Events
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Scent design

• Asks a different set of questions
• Why are users coming to the site?
• Which page is most important to the user?
• How will users find this page?
• What are the users trigger words?
• Where are they most likely to look for those
  words?
• Focus on content leads to a structure that
  reflects the users priorities

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How to design for scent

• Pages
• Links
• Words

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Designing for scentPages

• Each page should do one of two things
• Contain target content that users look for
• Emit a stronger scent

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Designing for scentLinks

• Need to have strong scent for the content that
  lies beyond it
• Blue and underlined
• Longer links say more
• Accurately describe whats on the next page

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Designing for scentWords

• Trigger words are the words and phrases that
  cause users to click
• Use the language that your users use
• Users search when they cant find their trigger
  words

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Designing for scentMyth busters

• Scrolling
• Users will scroll as long as design elements
  dont block them
• Clicking
• Users will click as long as they feel they are
  getting closer to their goal

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Organizing your content

• Do a content inventory
• On your Web site
• On other Web sites
• In policies
• In someones head
• Print publications
• On your wish list
• Information from users
• In other weird places

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Organizing your content

• Chunk
• Relationship
• Function
• Growth

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Organizing your content

• Label
• Topics
• Audiences
• Tasks
• All of the above?
• (Remember Trigger words, Consistency!)

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Organizing your content

• Put into larger groups
• How do these labels and categories fit together
  into a larger web site?

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Organizing your content

• Decide how your content flows
• Sequential
• How to Hire Consultants
• How to Get Rid of Pests
• Unordered
• Callers Cant Hear Me (checklist)

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Exercise 2

• Chicken
• Oranges
• Asparagus
• Banana
• Steak
• Muffins
• Tomato
• Avocado

• Milk
• Yogurt
• Cheese
• Biscuits
• Pork
• Carrots
• Squash
• Cucumber

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Ways to see if youreon the right track

• Ask the experts
• Authors, SMEs
• Heuristic evaluations
• Ask the audience
• Card sorting
• Surveys, interviews
• Focus groups
• User observations
• Field studies
• Usability testing

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Usability testing

• Even a small sample will let you know if youre
  making sense
• Create tasks for them to do
• Beware not to lead them into it
• Dont use trigger words when describing task
• Watch them do it
• Dont help!

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Thank you!

• Please complete the online evaluation through
  Enrollment Central.
• You can find the PowerPoint and exercises at
• http//blink.ucsd.edu/go/organize