Intranet page planning with content design techniques
•Télécharger en tant que PPTX, PDF•
0 j'aime•296 vues
"A podcast with slides - see the video: https://www.clearbox.co.uk/portfolio-item/intranet-content-planning/ ) As a communicator and intranet publisher, you know how to write well, but have you got a research approach to help you write exactly what should be covered? Before you write a single word, you should learn what your colleagues really need from you. Wedge and Suzie talk through some content design techniques and research methods, and discuss their own experiences to help you make the most of your intranet news and reference pages.
Recommandé
Recommandé
Contenu connexe
Similaire à Intranet page planning with content design techniques
Similaire à Intranet page planning with content design techniques (20)
Plus de Intranet Now
Plus de Intranet Now (20)
Dernier
Dernier (20)
Intranet page planning with content design techniques
- 1. A conversation @Wedge & @SuzieRobinson42 | @ClearBox Intranet content planning and techniques
- 2. Wedge Black of ClearBox Consulting Previously an intranet manager (sat within the Internal Communications team) at national and regional companies Now an intranet consultant for ClearBox Founder of the Intranet Now conference in London. ClearBox Consulting is a specialist independent consultancy that believes in making the workplace a better and more productive experience. @Wedge | @ClearBox | clearbox.co.uk
- 3. Suzie Robinson of ClearBox Consulting Previously an intranet manager (sat within the Internal Communications team) at national and global companies Now the reports consultant at ClearBox Won awards for previous intranet designs ClearBox understand technology, but we approach it from the people side first. @SuzieRobinson42 | @ClearBox | clearbox.co.uk
- 4. Topics 1. Content design 2. Discovering needs 3. Job stories 4. Skeletons 5. Approval 6. Actually writing! 7. Q&A @ClearBox
- 5. A discipline – a set of techniques @ClearBox 1. Content design
- 6. What content design is about An evidence-based approach to creating content to give the audience what they need in a way they expect and can use. Content design is a movement, an approach, a grouping of practices, and becoming a discipline. Sarah Richards, formally of GDS, has written the book on content design: contentdesign.london/book/ @ClearBox
- 7. Don’t assume; uncover @ClearBox 2. Discovering needs
- 8. Research methods The crux of content design, is that evidence comes first. No creation without research. 1. Desk research 2. Usability research 3. Expert research 4. User research 5. Discussion on specifics. @ClearBox
- 9. Research methods Desk research ☐What already exists ☐Common and uncommon search terms ☐Yammer conversations ☐FAQs Expert research / discussions ☐The responsible person ☐The expert user ☐Customer services ☐HR adviser ☐Field workers
- 10. The one thing that must be covered @ClearBox 2. Job stories
- 11. Job stories When [specific situation] I want to [know or do something] so I can [achieve a goal]. @ClearBox
- 12. You may want the ‘meat’, but start with solid foundations @ClearBox 4. Skeletons
- 13. Bullet-point skeleton Rely on your research results and your job stories and keep your audiences in mind. 1. Lay out bullet points to cover everything 2. Rework the list to order it from ‘must know’ to ‘nice to know’ / context 3. Consider breaking the list up with sub- headings to chunk the list 4. Sure, draft a title but don’t set your heart on it. @ClearBox
- 14. First pass skeleton New carpark to open (date) Old carpark available until (date) Location Entry system No changes to parking privileges Parking space entitlement criteria How to request a parking space Request a parking space [action] Restrictions Contact Job story When approaching the office location in my car I want to know where the carpark is and how to get in for free so I can park my car without additional help. @ClearBox
- 15. New carpark to open (date) Location Entry system Restrictions ◎ Old carpark available until (date) ◎ How to request a parking space ◎ No changes to parking privileges Parking space entitlement criteria Request a parking space [action] Contact Job story When approaching the office location in my car I want to know where the carpark is and how to get in for free so I can park my car without additional help. User story As a colleague who drives to work every day I want to know how to get into the carpark so I can park easily park and get to work on time. Second pass skeleton @ClearBox
- 16. Title: New carpark at Manchester office New carpark to open (date) Location and directions ◎ Entry system Restrictions Sub-head: Old carpark Old carpark available until (date) Sub-head: No changes to parking privileges Your allocation remains the same ◎ Sub-head: Request a new or different parking space N.B. No need if you already have one! ◎ How to request a parking space Parking space entitlement criteria Request a parking space [action] Contact Job story When approaching the office location in my car I want to know where the carpark is and how to get in for free so I can park my car without additional help. User story As a colleague who drives to work every day I want to know how to get into the carpark so I can park easily park and get to work on time. Third pass skeleton @ClearBox
- 17. Get the nod before you start drafting @ClearBox 5. Approval
- 18. Skeleton approval Circulate the job story and skeleton around your project teammates, subject-matter experts, and stakeholders. Explain that the bullet-points demonstrate what the article will express. Explain that the bullet points should meet the needs expressed in the job story. Ask for input and approval to proceed. @Wedge | @ClearBox
- 19. It’s the last thing you want to do @ClearBox 6. Actually writing!
- 20. Once colleagues and stakeholders agree with the job stories and skeletons, writing becomes simply about meeting the expectations appropriately. Now’s the time to bring your comms skills! @Wedge | @ClearBox
- 21. Good communications ☐Accurate ☐Timely ☐Obviously meaningful ☐Concise, easy to read ☐Easy to understand ☐Contextual ☐Fulfils a clear objective ☐Relevant / useful / actionable ☐Possibly, a pleasure to read!
- 22. Match the message to the audience to the channel Or as content designers say: 1. In the audience’s vocabulary 2. In the best format for the audience 3. Providing what the audience needs from us 4. Designed with data / research results. @ClearBox
- 23. Q&A
- 24. SharePoint intranets in-a-box report Our expert assessments of products that transform SharePoint into a useful and useable intranet. clearbox.co.uk/sp-intranet 32+ intranet product reviews 650+ pages Immediate download 10% off SUZIE clearbox.co.uk Offer expires end of June 2020. @ClearBox
Notes de l'éditeur
- Let’s get going!
- Hello hello, my names’ Wedge, it really is, and as a previous intranet manager for national and regional companies, I sat within the internal communications team and now as an intranet consultant I retain my interest in comms and content. ClearBox does a lot of digital workplace strategy and we help organisations consider the best tools and channels for their needs.
- Hi everyone, I’m Suzie, I now look after the reports for ClearBox, but in my previous roles I’ve managed intranets for a variety of business sizes and within different industries. I’ve won an award for one of my intranets, and my focus has always been in communications. We have fantastic insights into the tools and technologies out there, but we always approach things from the business and people side. Tasty beverage
- We’re just going to have a chat through these topics We’re keen on best practices, but in reality, good, is good enough, so we’ll highlight the difficulties we’ve faced when we were in role, and that our clients continue to face. It’s about pre-planning, I hate that word, but it is Please pop your questions into the Q&A panel – which you can open after wiggling your mouse on Zoom. Suzie and I will keep an eye on yours questions as we go through our dozen slides.
- Wedge – I refer to content design as a discipline, because it feels like an approach and a set of growing techniques. Suzie – It’s certainly a discipline as you have to be disciplined to do it. It’s something that can be seen as a nice to have but not always done. Where it is done you can see the benefits. It’s also a good teaching tool for those in your business who might not be confident writing.
- It’s about evidence, it’s about discovering and defining needs and meeting those needs through the presentation of content. It’s content as the interface. It’s about up-front planning and writing stuff to meet a need. It may be about readability and layout, but it’s not just about that. While layout is important, content design is not merely about placing text on a page. ---------------------- Wedge – has seen in practice. Suzie – in my experience isn’t always something that’s done properly or at all. I’m not saying that this is right, of course. Time pressures may mean this feels like too much or extra work on top of what they’re already trying to do. Wedge – FAQs, Q&As into pages. Suzie- Comms can rely on existing skills and experience. There is a way of working that works, and so many people may wonder why they need to consider a new way of approaching these things. Again, not saying it’s right. Wedge – my concern is that not everyone will follow the in-place standards and some might assume that good writing, good storytelling, is enough. Which can lead to the trap of communicating only what you want to tell people, rather than what people actually need.
- Don’t assume, uncover.
- Suzie So, how do you find out what’s missing for people? This is not about surveying 20% of your colleagues for every reference page. This is about doing the minimum research to be able to start with evidence rather than only assumptions. It’s about conversations with: those with the need the subject experts Stakeholders. There are 5 methods that you can take for this research. ------------- Wedge 1 MISS - what already exists internally and what other organisations do (best practice resources). Clearbox contentdesign.London 2 – what UX research has already been done? Gap analysis? 3 MISS – talk to the Subject experts – not just the policy setters, but the administrators and the process owners and the support workers / customer service people. 4 – shadowing during task completion, witness town halls. 5 – specific discussions led by yourself.
- Suzie DESK RESEARCH Reports and research squirreled away in a folder, or something another department has done (e.g. HR pulse survey) What are people looking for? Anecdotal evidence (questions on Yammer), or from search results reports Yammer can be a source and a route to this information – ask questions yourself and see what you get back FAQs are those that are asked, not the badly titled content page, Yammer is a good place to go for that but it also leads into the next section too Wedge EXPERT RESEARCH You did customer services Suzie didn’t you? Suzie – we’ve pulled these two items out of our list of five as they’re easiest … … Now Wedge talk through another cheap technique
- Now to move to actual technique
- Wedge - A job story is for a specific task for a specific audience, and every page should satisfy a job story. Here’s the template on screen, and Suzie you’ve got a couple of examples. Suzie DRIVER / PERSON - When approaching the office in my car I want to know which carpark to head for, and how to get in so I can park without additional help and get to work on time. Suzie MANAGER - When my people hear there will be a new car park I want to know if / how the security arrangements changes so I can brief my team correctly with the parking details. Suzie RECEPTION - When a novel issue is logged about the car park that our team has no experience of I want / NEED to find who to contact for expert guidance So that I can engage the right people to solve the problem and close the issue. Potentially, two piece of content or comms for two separate audiences. Wedge - Touchstone. Come back time and time again. The big thing is that your content must satisfy the job story and nothing else. Wedge - So, Suzie, this obviously works really well for short reference pages and those ‘how to’ guides that we all like. But, will a job story make for dull news / communications? What about engagement, what about persuasion? Suzie – One of the most engaging things you can do for an audience member is to show them you’re thinking about them when you’re writing for them. If it’s relevant, specific, helpful, direct, shows understanding then it’ll be engaging. For example there’s a diff between team meeting & one-on-one with line manager (and getting same actions). So for practical, clear comms, approach is right, but I think it’s a starting point rather than a rigid framework. Wedge – I worry about a loss of context – missing the inverted pyramid of WWWWWH – because comms is about creating a shared meaning, not merely providing information. Suzie – elephant in the room can be missed from job story. Have to cover unspoken questions. E.g. If a car park is changing and shrinking, it doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your jobs. The job story needs to be so specific and well-written that your stakeholders go ”oh yeah, that’s right, that’s exactly what we need to deal with”. So your job story is well written when you all agree it will work well. Wedge - And Suzie, we’re not mentioning user stories here, which is a core technique of content design. So before we get tomatoes thrown at us, let me say, that my previous video on content design covers all the major techniques. Suzie – We’re also pretty sure people in IC may already have an understanding of their audiences, but may not complete the user stories activity as a result.
- >> We’re still not drafting yet.
- OK, so this isn’t a codified content design technique but rather something I’ve developed over the years with my stakeholders. I’m sure you do something similar. What have you done Suzie, with your stakeholders to plan content? Has it been skeleton lists? Suzie – technique vaguely talked about at school for writing essays (never did it, wish I had now!), sat in meetings, group of seniors, they don’t draft! Note taking – reflecting on the meeting. Wedge – yes, senior leaders or my manager would ‘download’ all details to me, so I’d end up with a list. So the process is: Lay out bullet points to cover everything Rework the list to order it from ‘must know’ to ‘nice to know’ / context Consider breaking the list up with sub-headings to chunk the list Sure, draft a title but don’t set your heart on it
- SUZIE >> If you get 30 bullet points, something’s gone wrong; that isn’t a page anyone going to quickly reference. But you decide if 5 bullets or a dozen is appropriate.
- WEDGE Flowing well from the must knows at the top to the nice to knows at the bottom. I’ve highlighted how I’ve changed the list in green and with an icon. Your ordering might be different to mine, but the point is we’re following a process and relying on our expertise of course.
- SUZIE - Notice in green we’ve made some further amends because the sub-headings help us reflect on the content. Sub-headings are really important even on a short article. They help the eye jump around the page, and of course people only read what they need. So they want to go straight to the best bits for them. F-reading from audience.
- Review and approval is standard within comms, but in content design, they don’t seek approval, rather content designer ask for critiques, which is about improving the content, rather than approving. Crits I can understand comms people will still need ’approval to publish’ though, as they’ll often be dealing with news or time-sensitive reference pages, not just knowledge management.
- Wedge - I think it’s great to have a job story to define the problem and a skeleton to demonstrate the substance of your proposed article. It sets expectations and they’re easy to review and improve. Suzie – think beyond this as being just an article, consider the swathes of content that’s needed across the intranet. Think about publishers who may not be very experienced writers. H&S as an example. The job story and skeleton approach will really help them focus and understand what you’re trying do to, or how they could consider approaching their content. Wedge – I think skeletons are invaluable because they ensure you don’t deliver something unexpected. So you don’t spend 2.5 hours drafting something that isn't wanted.
- Wedge - We’ve just got three slides about writing as I’m only focusing on content design techniques in this webinar. I’m not gonna tell you how to write good comms!
- Suzie - Because the job stories and skeleton are so clear, everyone knows what’s coming. No surprises, so the review cycle should be less painful with fewer ‘maybe we need’ late ideas.
- Wedge – we said we wouldn’t tell you how to write, but here’s what I think supports good comms. Suzie – the internal guidance is missing here, around style and tone, and channels. Know the channel (hashtags for eg in Yammer).
- Match the message to the audience to the channel, or … Wedge – are these realistic? Suzie – they’re sensible and needed, but hard to do at speed. Arguably when you’re moving at speed it’s when this careful approach is needed more than ever. The situation we’re in now with Covid, focus on audience and deliver what people need – 1 and 3 are particularly important therefore.
- ClearBox is a digital workplace consultancy but we’re also famous for our reports – our most-up-to-date report will help you pull together your shortlist of vendors if you’re considering replacing your intranet, and of course there’s a discount code for you.