If there’s one thing that the infamous XKCD university homepage comic reminded us, it’s that we need to strike a better balance between tasks and messaging on our homepages. And if there’s one thing that the commentary stemming from that comic reminded us, it’s that our homepage is one of the most political entities we will ever manage, and the solutions don’t come easy. But if you think about, there really is no separate homepage strategy, is … [Read more...]
A Content-First Approach to Your Events Calendar
August 16, 2012 by
Ah, the events calendar. One of the most ubiquitous components of a university website, and often one of the most confounding. From wrestling with feeds and technical configurations to simply getting people to use the darned thing, a calendar can be a headache. Time to schedule some Excedrin. With the right approach, though, that headache can become a valuable asset. An events calendar is not just a software application, after all—it’s a rich … [Read more...]
A Little More Conversation
May 10, 2012 by
Last week, I saw this great tweet by the University of Kentucky's Jeana Clark: @markgr IA = the building/rooms/floorplan. UX = Hospitality in the building.— jeana (@jeana_with_a_j) May 2, 2012 So, if UX is hospitality, how do we express that hospitality? In a hotel, hospitality may be conveyed in part through tone of voice, manner, the questions we ask and answer—in short, content. Ginny Redish, author of the essential … [Read more...]
The Fallacy of User-Centered Content
October 4, 2011 by
On Meet Content, we talk a lot about the importance of users’ needs. Last week Georgy discussed content as customer service, highlighting the need for our content to be helpful to users. Indeed, content is customer service! For web writing and content creation, I consider this the number one guideline: keep your audience in mind. What are their needs? Why are they visiting your website? Content can't be useful if you don't know why it's needed … [Read more...]
Liberate Your PDF Newsletter Content
September 20, 2011 by
We’ve all received them—heck, perhaps we’ve even had to (shudder) distribute them. You know what I’m talking about: PDF newsletters, sent as an email attachment to a distribution list or linked on a webpage. In some corners, they still lurk. I’m just going to say it: People use PDFs for a hundred different reasons, and about 97 of them are wrong. (Rick blogged about some of these content problems in April.) The wrongest of the wrong, however, … [Read more...]