One of the most valuable weapons we have in our web content arsenal is a good photo. However, employing photography as meaningful web content is more difficult than it sounds. Do we have the resources both to shoot photos and format them correctly for the web? Are the photos we have available to us high-quality? And how do we select the right photo for the job? MIT's Elizabeth McManus, writing for the university’s WebPub User Group Blog, lays … [Read more...]
Content First, or Content Forever?
July 12, 2011 by
A few weeks ago, Rick and I appeared on Higher Ed Live to talk about A ‘Content-First’ Approach to Higher Ed Web. It sounds great, doesn't it? While we addressed the need for a content-first mindset, Sara Wachter-Boettcher elaborates to clarify the need for content-process mindset. How do we achieve this? By better thinking through the structures that support our content. Wachter-Boettcher cites higher ed websites as exemplary for a "beyond … [Read more...]
Aligning Content Online and Offline
July 6, 2011 by
Traditionally, we have viewed offline and online experiences as two separate things — complementary, perhaps, but separate. Today, the distinctions between physical and digital are dissolving — campus events are experienced both from the audience and via the hashtag — revealing themselves to be two sides of the same experience. This begs the tough question: Are we aligned? On June 12 and 13, I delivered a presentation at Penn State Web … [Read more...]
Higher Ed Live Recap: “A ‘Content-First’ Approach to Higher Ed Web”
June 23, 2011 by
On June 19, we appeared on Higher Ed Live with Seth Odell to talk about a "content-first" approach to higher ed web. It was a great discussion about why content matters and how we can make it the center of our conversations about the web in higher ed. We'd like to share the episode with you and flesh out some of the ideas we discussed with Seth. Why "Content First"? Content should always come first because we need it to support all … [Read more...]
Web User Experience Starts Here (And So Does Your Content)
June 13, 2011 by
There's more than one doorway to our websites. People come in through the garage, basement, window, chimney — well, you get the picture. Colleges are learning that their website user experience doesn't always start on their homepage. Sometimes the first web content people see is a blog post or a student handbook PDF or an inquiry form. Or is it? Actually, the user experience never starts on your website. The doorway to your site is … [Read more...]