Content strategy focuses on the planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content
Good content is appropriate
Content is appropriate for the users when it helps them accomplish their goals
- physical
- emotional
- cognitive
‘Content is something we connect emotionally’
Think about your audience
Everyone is in different situations. Everyone has different needs
Physical Factors
- segmentation potential
- disability
- device type
- gender
- geolocation
- time
Good content is useful
Good content is user centred
The user needs to know what’s going on
Good content is clear
Good content is consistent
Good content is concise
Good content is supported
The Craft of Content Strategy
Content people work for the user
Stories Matter
Upside down triangle method
- Most important information
- Supporting details
- General info
Users are people too
Information Architecture – brings order to the chaos
Sitemap, wireframes, content audits – all brings structure. These are all very important stages in your process
Tools and Techniques
- Evaluate
- Design
- Execute
Understanding your users
Premise
- We are not our users. We need to design for them not you
Problem – lots of users
Personas
Components of goal directed design that support personas
- End goals
- Scenarios
How are personas created?
- Interview and/or observe an adequate number of people
- Find patterns in the interviewees’ responses and actions, and use those to group similar people together
- Create archetypical models of these groups based of the patterns found
Note – 5 people is a good number to interview
What are personas used for?
- Build empathy
Note – making content more accessible and fun. Make it so they understand
How do personas work?
Narrative practise
This is the ability to create, share and hear stories
Long-term memory
- This is the ability to understand, relate to, and even share the feelings.
Persona A – a child 8-10
Persona B – undergraduate 18-22
Think about what you would ask them?
Remember
- Ask primarily open-ended questions
- Ask participants to show more than tell
- When possible, ask for specific stories, especially anything you cannot observe
Note – could post questionnaire online – mums.net, Facebook
Summary/Reflection
This week’s lecture was quite difficult for me to understand. I found myself struggling to get what the tasks for this week were. Eventually I found a few articles on user personas and user scenarios that really helped get the hang of it. Now understanding it, I do see the importance of these tasks as they will help make my app more user friendly and I will understand the type of user for my app more.
Tasks to be Completed
- competitor analysis
- user research
- user scenarios
- user personas
- site map
- wireframes
Competitor Analysis
Periodic Table based games and apps
I found more informative GCSE level apps than I did find child friendly apps. I found this app below. I did download it to have a go and it was fun and easy to use, but it lacked any learning value for children as you needed to know about the elements before downloading.
Another game was mr material – periodic table, looked fun and interactive but again seemed too complicated for a child aged 7-10
Farming based games and apps
Tiny Plant Farm – Go Farm Life
This is cool looking app that has a pixelated style to it. It is all farming based but I really like the style and can see the appeal. It lacks an educational value maybe?
User Research
User Personas
Persona One
Persona 2
User Scenarios
| ACTOR | SOPHIE |
| MOTIVATOR | wants to learn about science |
| INTENTION | she needs to learn in a fun, engaging way |
| ACTION | Sophie browses an app store and looks for something that matches her needs |
| RESOLUTION | Sophie finds an engaging app and learns about the periodic table |
| ACTOR | RYAN |
| MOTIVATOR | wants to able to test his science knowledge |
| INTENTION | he needs to be challenged and learn in a fun way |
| ACTION | Ryan browses an app store and looks for something that matches his needs |
| RESOLUTION | Ryan finds a fun and challenging app on the periodic table |
Sitemap
Wireframes
