Content strategy for technical communication

background imageflickr: thelastminute

Content strategy in technical communication

Sarah OKeefe, Scriptorium PublishingTwitter: @sarahokeefe

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Housekeeping notes

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The presentation is being recorded; attendees do not appear in the recording


What is content strategy?

Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.

Content strategy is a plan to get you from where you are now with your current content (assets, operations, distribution, maintenance, and so on), to where you want to be.

- Kristina Halvorson


Tech comm needs more than web content strategy. Localization

Print

Embedded help

Context-sensitive help

Code comments


Complicated requirements

Multiple outputs

Regulated content

Coordination with product development

Versioning/conditionality


Content strategy in tech comm

A plan for

your information

Developing

Delivering

Deploying

Destroying


Yet another buzzword?

Theres definitely hype

Content strategy is different from technical communication (or technical writing)

flickr: anitakhart


Content strategy

Tech comm LocalizationCommunity Training

Technical writingUI stringsVideos

ForumsWikis

ScopeProcess

Coursewaree-learning


Our content strategy methodology Analyze an established content

workflow

Identify business problem(s)

Identify new requirements

Develop solutions to address requirements


Analyzing an established workflow

flickr: st3f4n


Broken workflows

PDF deliverables not meeting user needs

Current workflow cannot scale to address localization and/or new products

Need a strategy to foster and manage community participation in technical content


Audience: What problems do you see? Describe your content problems in the

Questions tab

We will display your contributions to all attendees


More problems

Developing content in Agile

Workflow is inefficient and expensive

Current deliverables are of low quality

Need to align content development better with product development

Complex conditions not supported by current toolset


Identify business problem

flickr:state-records-nsw


PDF deliverables not meeting user needs Users are unhappy (quality)

They call tech support, which is expensive for us (money)

We spend a lot of time formatting for print (time), but users still hate it (quality)


Audience: Describe your business problem Describe your problem in business

terms (time, money, quality) in the Questions tab

We will display your contributions to all attendees


Workflow cannot scale for localization and/or new products

Customers interpret English-only docs as a sign that we are not serious about selling to them (quality)

We have a six-month delay between English and localized products (time)

We are losing revenue in non-English markets (money)


Need a strategy for community participation Our complex product needs

participation from community experts (quality)

Building a robust community is less expensive than hiring additional people to create content internally (money)


Identify new requirements

flickr: Francisco Diez


Requirement examples

Community participation

Accelerated deployment

Simultaneous shipment in multiple languages

New output formats


Develop solutionsflickr: Svadilfari


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and other requirements


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Developing

Who is the audience?

Common characteristics

How does your audience want to get information?

What information do they need?

Use cases

Personas


What is the best way to deliver each type of information?

flickr: clearlyambiguous


The wrong approach

Current knowledge of tools and technologies

Readily available software

Personal preference


Some delivery options

Traditional paper manual

Web-based configuration tool

Help and embedded help

Web pages

Forums, wikis, and other collaborative content

Live video, screencasts, animation, podcasts


Break out of the book

flickr: kellymccarthy


Community strategy

Participation

Moderation

Feedback loop


Regulated environmentsflickr: jmrosenfeld


Delivering

What is the best format for our audience?

How do we create this format?

Content management issues


Deploying

How do we get our output to our audience?

How do we make sure that the audience has access to the information?


Content destruction

What happens when information becomes obsolete?

How do we handle archiving and retention?

What about versioning? How many versions should be available?


Change management

Consider incremental improvements

Look for flexible solutions that can grow and evolve

Componentize?

Review every 25 years, depending on your organizations velocity


Poll: Content strategy

Fab!

Fad

Meh. Whatever.


Resources

knol.google.com/k/content-strategy#

Bibliography of Wikipedia entry on content strategy for book references

www.scriptorium.com/2010/10/content-strategy-for-technical-communication/


Final notes

scriptorium.com/resources/webcasts for the webcast recording (allow three business days)

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Content strategy for technical communication

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