Content Strategy Is A Cross-Discipline Practice

As a term, content strategy is a relatively new one to the production of interactive experiences; in particular, website redesigns and new-builds. Too often in the past, the process of creating a content strategy has been to draw a roadmap for content development. As a result of strong editorial practice or from well-meaning search engine optimization practices, many websites have lots of content, but little of it is effective for the visitor nor well-managed structurally. The phrase, “content is king” has echoed through the years, but this has produced content on the web more notable for it’s quantity than it’s quality or experience.

Content strategy, as it is beginning to be known, is a cross-discipline practice that seeks to strike a balance between user experience and SEO, persona development and site architecture, meta-data and editorial calendars, keyword research and traffic analysis. The concepts and protocols are being defined by key practitioners like Kristina Halvorson and Erin Scime and are expanding the definition of content strategy at a key moment when the web is also diversifying both in terms of platforms and applications, and in terms of standardization and conventions.

In her insightful essay on content strategy for A List Apart in December of 2009, Erin Scime lays out the conceptual overview of the content strategist as a digital curator. For me the term “digital curator” is a bit too academic. While it is true that curators, “use judgment and a refined sense of style to select and arrange art to create a narrative, evoke a response, and communicate a message,” there seems to be room in the new definition to include the role of the environmental designer and the exhibition designer as well. It is not just the contextual thread that runs through the exhibit that interests the visitor in a website, but the ebb and flow of the content, the container of the exhibit itself, and the development of visual cohesion.

Still, Scime lays out a number of elegant, competent arguments for this expanded definition of the content strategist starting with defining and assessing the current content and needs of a project, and ending with editorial strategies and the establishment of organizational guidelines and protocols. As she says, “…content strategy engagement is site-level and long-term…” and she is right. Content strategists need to work with stakeholders and marketing people to understand the trajectory of the project and its place within the larger brand and message. They need to work directly with SEO and SEM departments or vendors to uncover searchable terms and incorporate them into every aspect of the website’s development and digital marketing. Likewise, content strategy will directly effect UX and IxD and the kinds of visual structures and cues they will create for the visitor. And now, content strategists must also navigate social media and be responsive to both external audience and internal needs.

The new content strategist is involved in every conversation surrounding an interactive project; if not in the actual development and production of the interactive experience, then certainly in the mapping of the content and the structuring of it within the larger framework. Content is not just king, but it is the map and the territory.

Standard Interactive Experiences Remain Elusive Over Spectrum Of Today's Devices

In his forward-thinking article, Responsive Web Design, for alistapart, Ethan Marcotte put forth an edict about changes to the entire interactive design process that will, in my opinion, be the web standard of the future. In it he talked about client project requirements that include secondary interactive experiences like iPhone websites and others. It’s safe to say we all have begun to see these will be the norm moving forward. In the article Marcotte said,

“…as designers, I think we often take comfort in such explicit requirements, as they allow us to compartmentalize the problems before us,…(but) can we really continue to commit to supporting each new user agent with its own bespoke experience?”

Rather than generating separate content, architecture, and development for each different initiative, the answer he puts forth is Responsive Web Design. This is not to be confused with the fluid grid and flexible images that many of us have tried as solutions in the past. Even with fluid grids, interactive content delivery is problematic for anything less than the desktop experience and across the spectrum of browsers – a standard experience remains elusive. Working with CSS3 and web standards put forth by W3C, designers and developers are beginning to experiment with coding that allows the entire website to float and architect itself depending on the screen size, resolution, and device-type.

Media queries, a robust part of the new CSS3 specifications, allow interactive designers and programmers to build to the various parameters of the devices themselves by sending queries that test the field where the content will land and then define a specification for that field. These queries can be chained together and, once the device passes a given test query, will further apply the specification(s) to the content in the markup. This is quite simplified for the sake of this post (you can find out more about media queries and CSS3 in the article link above), but the important thing is understanding that the lay of the interactive landscape is changing and designers and digital marketers must change with it. Soon it will be your clients who have heard that this is possible and will want to know if you can supply this design/programming solution. You’ll want to be able to say yes!