Without careful and thoughtful IA, your Content Strategy and UX will suffer. Let's explore the relationship between Content Strategy and IA in a digital agency.

1. 01WORLD IA DAY 2016 CONTENT STRATEGY & IA: DATA SOUL MATES
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN,

2. CONTENT STRATEGY & IA
Data Soul Mates

3. TODAY’S CHAT
➤ Who am I?
➤ Content strategy
➤ The tasks of content strategy
➤ Information architecture
➤ How do they relate?
➤ Working with another colleague tasked with IA
➤ Small agency process
➤ Content strategy resources
➤ Questions, comments, concerns

4. MY EXPERIENCE
➤ 12 years in marketing
➤ Previously: Digital Product
Support, Journal Broadcast
Group
➤ Currently: Content Strategist,
Lightburn

5. “It’s kind of a truism in this industry:
everybody started out doing
something else and came in through a
side entrance.
-Karen McGrane
Karen McGrane Quote

6. LIGHTBURN IN 30 SECONDS
➤ Digital agency
➤ Milwaukee, Wisconsin
➤ 1998
➤ 16 developers, designers, UX, digital marketing and account
professionals
➤ lightburn.co
➤ @lightburn

7. LIGHTBURN’S WORK

8. WHAT IS CONTENT STRATEGY?

9. “…planning for the creation, delivery
and governance of useful, usable
content.
-Kristina Halvorson

10. TYPICAL CS TASKS
➤ Content audits & inventories
➤ Metadata
➤ Gap analysis
➤ Content style guides
➤ Copywriting
➤ Information architecture
➤ Identify and plan for content that:
➤ Supports key business objectives
➤ Supports users in completing tasks
➤ Supports consistent brand
messaging
➤ Supports consistent user experience
across multiple contexts and devices
Adapted from Andy Fitzgerald’s Information Architecture & Strategy

11. CONTENT AUDIT & INVENTORY

12. METADATA
➤ <meta title> ~75 characters
➤ <meta description> ~150 characters

13. CONTENT STYLE GUIDE

14. WHAT IS IA?

15. “Information architecture (IA) focuses
on organizing, structuring and
labeling content in an effective and
sustainable way.
-usability.gov

16. TYPICAL IA TASKS
➤ Taxonomies & ontologies
➤ Controlled vocabularies
➤ Navigation maps
➤ Metadata maps
➤ Search functionality
specifications
➤ Use cases
➤ User flows
Adapted from Andy Fitzgerald’s Information Architecture & Strategy

17. HOW DO THEY RELATE?
➤ Not optional
➤ Concerned with structure, meaning, organization, best
practices
➤ Focused mostly on the user
➤ Dip into creatives “territory”
Adapted from Chris Moritz’s Overlapping and Underpinnings - Content Strategy and Information Architecture

18. “IA defines structure, content strategy
defines mass, creatives define surface.
-Chris Moritz

19. TOGETHER, THEY
DESCRIBE “WHAT”
Adapted from Andy Fitzgerald’s Information Architecture & Strategy

20. ONCE AN AGREED-UPON UNDERSTANDING OF “WHAT”
IS ESTABLISHED, SUBSEQUENT DESIGN PHASES
(INTERACTION DESIGN, VISUAL DESIGN) CAN MOVE ON
TO “HOW” WITH A CLEAR SENSE OF THE GOALS AND
PRIORITIES OF THE UNDERLYING VALUE PROPOSITION.
Adapted from Andy Fitzgerald’s Information Architecture & Strategy

21. WORKING WITH
ANOTHER COLLEAGUE
whose tasks also include information architecture

22. DEFINE YOUR ROLES
➤ How will you approach the
project from your unique
perspective?
➤ How can CS and IA help to
inform one another?
➤ What does success look like
for the other?
➤ Avoid the power struggle.
Posts by Ahava Leibtag’s Content Strategy: 5 Tips on Working with an Information Architect

23. TALK ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUNDS
➤ What experiences from
previous projects or positions
have worked for you?
➤ What strengths or weaknesses
do you have?
Posts by Ahava Leibtag’s Content Strategy: 5 Tips on Working with an Information Architect

24. EXPLAIN THE INPUTS YOU NEED
➤ What things do your IA or CS
colleagues need that you
might not be aware of?
➤ There’s always time to talk.
Posts by Ahava Leibtag’s Content Strategy: 5 Tips on Working with an Information Architect

25. SMALL AGENCY PROCESS

26. PROCESS FROM DISCOVERY THROUGH START OF DESIGN
➤ Signed proposal
➤ Internal discovery kick off (UX, Design, Project Management)
➤ Client discovery kick off
➤ Internal brainstorming
➤ UX and CS work simultaneously
➤ Content audit/inventory
➤ Wireframes
➤ CS provides an initial sitemap based off of discovery insights
➤ UX review of sitemap
➤ Internal wireframe review
➤ Client internal wireframe review
➤ Sitemap is a consistently updated, changeable document

27. WHY THIS WORKS
➤ Everyone is on the same page
from day one
➤ Input from CS, UX and Design
is a group effort
➤ Wireframes are reviewed and
edited as a team with input
and takeaways from each
department

28. CONTENT STRATEGY RESOURCES
➤ Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson
➤ Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every
Interactive Project, Margot Bloomstein
➤ Blog, GatherContent.com
➤ Scatter/Gather medium.com/scatter-gather
➤ A List Apart alistapart.com

29. THANK YOU
Valerie Bruce
Content Strategist, Lightburn
valerie@lightburn.co