August 25, 2010 CONTENT STRATEGY EXERCISES UX Week 2010
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 2 of 19 EXERCISE 1A: USER NEEDS AND BUSINESS GOALS User Persona Take a look at the sample persona and scenario on the next page, and think about how you d communicate a list of user goals. What does he need or expect to find when he does his research? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 3 of 19 USER PERSONA Anthony Collins IT Department Head Chicago, Illinois Anthony has spent the past 6 years working as the Head of IT at a mid-sized marketing and advertising agency. Anthony is responsible for purchasing and administering all the office equipment including everything from computers, phones, servers, and photocopiers. He has a team of people who work with him to maintain the systems when something goes wrong. The company is headquartered in Chicago, but has offices in several other cities across the US. Sometimes, project teams collaborate across offices, which means that employees fly between the various office locations. Occasionally Anthony has to travel too he s responsible for making sure that technology runs smoothly in every office. Exciting news for the company this year is that they re opening their first international office in Amsterdam. Anthony s boss, the owner and president of the company, gives him a new assignment: We can t afford to keep flying people all over the country every time there s a meeting. Look into getting us some kind of video conferencing system. Like that Telepresence thing I saw on that show 24. Anthony knows from past experience that his boss doesn t want to be overwhelmed with options. It s Anthony s job to research potential solutions and make a recommendation.
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 4 of 19 EXERCISE 1B: USER NEEDS AND BUSINESS GOALS Case Study Take a look at the sample case study on the next page, and think about how you d communicate a list of business goals. What does this company expect to achieve by putting information on the web? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 5 of 19 CASE STUDY Cisco defines its mission as follows: Cisco Systems, Inc. NASDAQ: CSCO San Jose, California One of the world's biggest technology companies, Cisco is an American multinational corporation that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking and communications technology and services. Headquartered in California, Cisco has more than 65,000 employees and annual revenue of US$36.11 billion as of 2009. We enable people to make powerful connections. Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible providing easy access to information anywhere, at any time. Industry analysts expect the expect the videoconferencing industry to generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue in 2011, with compound annual growth rates of 17-21% each year after. These projections take into account several market forces, including the economic downturn, which reduces budgets for travel, and increased attention to environmental or green causes. Cisco is a leading player in developing solutions for business collaboration, including videoconferencing. Cisco offers a wide variety of products and services at all price points from their high-end Telepresence suites to conferencing tools built into mobile and desktop phones, and including their recent purchase of web-based conferencing software provider, WebEx.
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 6 of 19 EXERCISE 2A: CONTENT ANALYSIS Content Inventory Visit http://www.cisco.com and create an inventory of content related to business collaboration and videoconferencing. You will need to make choices about what to evaluate and how to document it: What data points do you need to gather (in other words, how do you set up your spreadsheet?) How do you choose which pages to look at? Based on user scenarios, content types, or other methods? How broad and deep do you need to go? Can you find content that has been lost or hidden? How do you ensure you see examples of all the different content types (page types, media types, etc.)? Do you track information at the page level, or at a more granular level? A sample spreadsheet has been provided if you need help getting started.
Page ID Section Page Name URL Notes Owner Pub Date Status
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 8 of 19 EXERCISE 2B: CONTENT ANALYSIS Content Audit Based on the content inventory you just completed, and the user needs and business goals you completed in Exercise 1, assess the quality of this content. You will need to make decisions about how to define quality content. Remember: there is no overall definition of good content there s only subjective quality within your business and user context. Does the content communicate clearly? Is the content complete? Do you have all the content that needs to be there? Is the content up-to-date? Are the examples presented fresh? Is the tone and style appropriate for your the reader? Is it appropriate for your brand? Is the content relevant to its intended audience? Are there other audiences this content might be relevant to? What business purpose does the content serve? Does it help meet business goals? How will you document your findings? If you add to your spreadsheet, how will you track your assessment? Since this is a subjective exercise, how will you persuade your project team that your assessment is valid? How will you present your findings?
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 9 of 19 EXERCISE 3A: MESSAGING Messaging Architecture Going back to your understanding of the user and the business, what are the main points that should be communicated about this line of products? Primary Message One focused, memorable sentence that captures the essence of what this is and the value it provides. Should answer what? and why? questions. Secondary Messages Supporting points that provide context and more specific information, answering additional questions like who? and how? and when? and how much? 1. 2. 3. Call to Action What do you want the user to think or do differently after seeing this information?
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 10 of 19 EXERCISE 3B: MESSAGING Content Annotations Based on the wireframes on the next pages which show common templates, provide direction about how to communicate your primary and secondary messages. Imagine you are giving guidance to a copywriter, who may be a freelancer, a colleague, or a client. If you ve ever written annotations for wireframes, you might think of these as annotation for content rather than interaction. Good annotations will: Help the writer understand and focus on the goal of the page Prioritize the information presented, both in the flow of text and in the placement on the page Give direction about what to say and how to say it Tie back to the overall messaging architecture Great annotations will also: Direct the writer to appropriate source materials, both online and offline Guide selection of images, videos, and data visualizations, if available Indicate how often each content element should be reviewed, edited, or deleted
Solutions Landing Page Objective Annotations 1 Heading goes here lorem ipsum dolor Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. 2 3 4 5 Page heading goes here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. 6 Sub heading as needed Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend. Bullet points as needed: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. 7 8 9 10 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Notes Owner: Source Material: Review Cycle:
Product Landing Page Objective Annotations 1 Heading goes here lorem ipsum dolor 2 3 4 5 Product Category Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril. 6 7 Product Category Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril. 8 Product Category Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril. 9 10 Product Category Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril. Notes Owner: Source Material: Review Cycle:
Product Page Objective Annotations 1 2 3 4 Video title goes here adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. 5 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Sub heading as needed Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend. Bullet points as needed: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat 6 7 8 9 10 Notes Owner: Source Material: Highlighted content goes here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad. Review Cycle:
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 14 of 19 EXERCISE 4A: TESTING User Interviews In an interview setting, you can use a think-aloud protocol to learn how readers process and make sense of content. Working in pairs, select one person to be the participant and one to act as moderator. The participant should read the whitepaper on the next page. (If this were a real test, the participant would be recruited to match the characteristics of the intended audience. To the extent possible, the participant should pretend to adopt the persona of Anthony, the IT Director.) The moderator should first quickly read through the whitepaper. Then work off the moderator guide that appears on page 18.
Video Communications and Unified Communications (UC) The Role of Telepresence Some have suggested that Telepresence, as the new entrant to the video market is a contributor to this energy. This is not accurate. Instead, telepresence is a beneficiary of these factors, not a contributor. Telepresence is a premium subset of the video conferencing market. It leverages HD video conferencing technologies and high speed networks that with a high degree of experience engineering standardizes the wall treatments, room geometry, furniture, lighting, audio, seating and fixed camera placements to create a completely consistent and immersive experience. Telepresence makes you feel like you re in the same room as the remote participants. Video communications is a strategic business service The video conferencing market is facing a Perfect Storm 1 due to the convergence of three market factors advances in video conferencing endpoint technologies, improvements in speed, cost and availability of networks and increases in user expectations that are colliding to accelerate the adoption and amplify the significance of video conferencing technology for business communications. This is best manifested in the rapid growth in equipment shipments by the leading vendors, representing double-digit growth in year-over-year revenues, shipments and profits in the recently ended second quarter of 2008. Those organizations adopting the premium-priced immersive telepresence platforms or services recognize that they can justify the premium and can justify the extensive resources not just because of the quality of the experience, but as recognition of the strategic significance of the experience, based on the people who use it and the value of their time and contributions to the business. Yet, even the lesser room video conferencing is a resource intensive service. Endpoint devices and telepresence systems generally cost thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars, which although inexpensive compared to frequent and long distance business travel, they are expensive compared to alternative realtime service infrastructures such as softphones on PCs and business telephones and IP telephony systems. Network-wise, the video component of a session can consume at least 15 times greater bandwidth than the audio stream of the same conversation. As it stands today, a video conferencing unit can only connect with another video conferencing unit. Unlike a mobile telephone which can connect with any other mobile phone or any telephone around the world with a total network domain of approximately 4 billion discrete possibilities, the video conferencing unit can at most, connect with a few million units in service. But, many of these units will only be addressable by ISDN and many others will be inaccessible behind corporate firewalls. Furthermore, large enterprises have tended to operate their corporate The value of video comes from seeing each other. 1 The Perfect Storm: Why Video Conferencing Will Dominate Business Communications, Brockmann & Company, 2007 An Emerging Triple-Play: Video Communications, Managed Services and Unified Communications! 2
video environment on a separate IP-based MPLS network distinct from the converged data and voice traffic of the enterprise because the long session duration and high bandwidth demands of video conferencing can put the reliability and flow of lesser applications at risk for packet discard or instantaneous delay. High quality experiences leads to customer interactions via video Simply being invited to participate in a video communications instead of an audio conference improves the brand of the inviter for most business users. 2 Yet, there are several barriers to be addressed before inter-company video communications becomes widespread. For many enterprises, particularly those in financial services, medical, high technology or government agencies where sophisticated IT security policies are prevalent, the inter-enterprise video session is rare. Security professionals have a saying that the lowest security policy prevails, which explains why they are naturally leery of any request to interconnect networks. Usually, the security discussions overwhelm the network interconnection negotiations. These organizations struggle with enabling high speed interconnection without compromising security policies. The security engineering required can often introduce delays in the approval, testing and scheduling of sessions. This restricts the usefulness of the implementation and lengthens the lead time required to schedule and conduct an inter-company video communications. That s why carrier-peering specialists that manage the secure peering requirements have a big role to play in enabling effective inter-business video communications. Working with other strategic communications services Figure 1 Unified Communications involves the integration of multiple communications services and the integration of communications with business processes and the applications that embody them. [IM=instant messaging, ERP=enterprise resource planning, CRM=customer relationship management, LMS=location management services.] Source: Brockmann & Company, 2008. ERP CRM LMS... voice video IM calendar email... UC-Phase 1 UC-Phase 2 Communications n Communications n + business applications Video conferencing however, is not the only strategic communications service present in the enterprise. As shown in figure 1, enterprise real-time services voice, instant messaging, mobile voice and video communications are blurring together to improve user productivity. At one level, shown as phase 1 above, UC promises to deliver a stream of seamless click-to-engage capabilities so users can start with an instant message and escalate into a telephone call or a video collaboration. And when integrated with calendaring and presence publishing services, users can click the event in the calendar to automatically engage and authenticate the call, the web conference and or the reserved video 2 The Value of Video Communications, Brockmann & Company, 2008 An Emerging Triple-Play: Video Communications, Managed Services and Unified Communications! 3
communications service as specified in the event record. This capability is a kind of communications on steroids, something described as Communications raised to the nth power or simply, Communications n because it greatly improves the personal productivity of the workforce, since they can get decisions or answers faster than before. It is through the widespread adoption of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) that many real-time communications services such as voice, video, instant messaging and mobile voice can be integrated together, with store-and-forward applications such as email, Short Message Service (SMS) and voicemail. Integration with resource management applications such as scheduling or session orchestration services can show user presence and availability, simplify session setup and reservation with a one-click function and ultimately create new kinds of communications-rich business processes. The promise of unified communications (UC) lie initially in reducing the cost and complexity of independent networks, improving user productivity through accelerated decision-making and to innovate in communications-rich business processes to create new sources of revenue. Naturally, video communications can play a big role in achieving these UC goals. Integrations of these services help the video communications service more tightly integrate with the available collaboration services of the enterprise. Being able to schedule an HD video conference room or a telepresence room within the same application as scheduling a meeting room or confirming participation in the video session makes it easier to imbed video communications into the corporate culture. Also, being able to right-click to escalate an instant messaging chat dialog into an executive video conferencing or room conferencing session is useful and accelerates adoption and use of the collaboration option. Video communications can enable other strategic goals as part of a UC implementation. For example, in one professional services firm, the international telepresence system was justified not as a substitute for traveling to deliver on-customer premises work, but as a key business continuity tool. In the event of a catastrophic event curtailing business travel such as war or pandemic, video-based face-to-face meetings with clients can still occur. An oil exploration company uses video conferencing to quickly respond to technical problems at the remote drilling platform. Corporate experts can provide detailed visual guidance on diagnosis and resolution without travel, delivering higher expert productivity and more confident on-site engineers and technicians. And in an urban health care setting, physicians can communicate better with patients who speak other languages when they have a video-based translator who can hear, see and show the physician s questions and the patient s answers. Figure 2 - The receiving team spins into action as a high priority shipment approaches the loading dock. Source: Brockmann & Company, 2008. UC phase 2 involves the integration of UC with business processes to create completely new communications-rich applications. Figure 2 shows just such an example. In an assembly facility, GPS-logistics application automatically places phone calls to the receiving team about the incoming shipment of time critical parts arriving in two minutes. Acknowledgements are recorded. A series of HD video cameras are engaged to record the arrival process for analysis and training. The goal is to enforce a seamless servicing of the incoming truck like a Formula 1 pit crew services the car and driver in the middle of a race and in this way improve a vital business process. An Emerging Triple-Play: Video Communications, Managed Services and Unified Communications! 4
August 25, 2010 Content Strategy Workshop Exercises Page 18 of 19 MODERATOR GUIDE Introduction and Setup Introduce yourself I m a researcher working with Cisco Systems to help them gather feedback on some of their products and services. I don t work for Cisco, so I hope you feel you can be completely honest with me. You re not going to hurt my feelings if you don t like something, and you won t make me happy if you do. Explain the goal and process for the task We d like to get your feedback on a whitepaper about videoconferencing. You ll be asked to read the whitepaper and tell me what you think it means. One thing that I m going to ask you to a little differently is I m going to ask you to think out loud as you re reading. I don t want you to read the whitepaper to me, I want you to tell me what you think it means or how you re making sense of it. Start the test This will take about ## minutes. Do you have any questions for me before we begin? During the Test You may want to provide more context for the participant, such as Please review this document as if you were reading it at work. Remind the participant that It is important that you say aloud everything that you think as you re reading this document. Encourage the participant to explain images, charts, or other graphics to you. If the participant starts reading silently, prompt him or her with please keep talking or tell me what you re thinking now. During longer interviews, you can tell the participant that they can stop the test: If you were using this document at work and you reach a point where you d quit reading it, let me know that too. Thank the participant at the end of the interview.