Content Design
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All this adds up to a list of words you want to use.
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How your audience
thinks (and searches)
Some people search the web using different words from the ones they would say out loud.
Some people talk online in a slightly different way again. You need to look at all that language and make a decision.
It’s part of your job to be respectfully nosey about the words your audience uses to refer to your product or service.
The best way I have found to see into the lives of my audience without leaving my desk is to use forums. Forums are little worlds full of users and their vocabulary. You need to find a few to see what humans really think about a subject. Forums can be influenced by a certain way of thinking so, if possible, look at a range of them if you want a good overall view of your audience.
In our example, you could search for ‘fracking forum’ to get to your microworld of interesting people. At the time of writing, there are over 2
million results for that term on Google. Some of the forums will be very technical, intended for and used by specialists. Some will be for Case study
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beginners who are just curious, and some will be for everybody. So where to start?
Get a list of what you actually need A forum can be like a rabbit warren. Go in with a few ideas of what you want out of it. You could set out to find:
● all the types of vocabulary people use to discuss fracking
● the top 10 things your audience wants to know when it comes to fracking
● how emotive this subject is (and who it affects the most)
This will give you:
● a prioritised list of content
● what words to put on the page
● an indication of your style and tone (if you don’t already have one for your site) Remember, this is just a starting point. You’ll validate all this later as you move further through the process.
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All the types of fracking vocabulary I looked at 7 forums for this. The most interesting thing I found was that the forum owners tended to write in technical jargon and had a formal, knowledgeable tone. The forum users used plain language and were very passionate about the subject.
Digital language and spoken language The way we speak to each other and the way we search digitally can be poles apart. We use body language and tone of voice to convey meaning when we’re in front of someone.
In person, we rely on other communication cues, so when we search we don’t bother with all that.
Many confident web users will type the bare minimum to get what they want from a search engine. But they wouldn’t dream of speaking that way. Out loud they’d say: ‘Let’s take a look at the weather forecast to see if we need a coat today.’ But all they’d type into a search engine would be: ‘weather london’.
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tion technology, we need to think again. For example, people just need to ask Apple’s Siri:
‘Do I need an umbrella today?’ and it will work out what the weather is in the local area and respond appropriately (‘Yes, we will see some rain today.’).
The trick is to look for patterns. You’ll see duplication all over the place. Those duplicated words are your keywords. In the scenario above, the common factor is weather. That’s your term. You will need to put the location on the page for people coming to a site and those talking to electronic helpers. Those words are your basics – your building blocks for the rest of the page.
Find out what words your users use I was part of a team working on information for a British benefit that includes something called
‘mandatory reconsideration’ as part of the application process. (It’s for when a claim has been turned down, at which point the claimant can go back to the government and ask it to review the case).
In user research, one of our participants Case study
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(people who had or were going to claim this benefit) spoke at length about the process and said: ‘We can do that appeal thingy. I want to do that.’ Then she turned back to the computer and typed in ‘mandatory reconsideration’. In speech, she hadn’t mentioned that term once.
And in the application process, an appeal is officially something quite different. But she knew the government would call it ‘mandatory reconsideration’ so typed it in.
That’s why you have to go to different forums and any other places your audience is: to see what they will type. Voice commands are used but not nearly so much as typing (at the moment). So for now, take note of their digital language.
The main things
people want
to know about
fracking
Going back to our fracking example from Nice Case study
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Green Energy, I can see from forums that the main things people talk about are:
● the effect on the planet
● where fracking will occur (‘Is it near me?’)
● actions people can take (write to an MP, campaigning opportunities)
● whether fracking is actually a real concern
● fracking and politics
Let’s stop there for now. This is our list of prioritised content for Nice Green Energy.
How emotional people are
Some people are far more confrontational online because they’ll probably never meet the person they are talking to. Many people wouldn’t speak in that way if the person was standing in front of them. You need to keep this in mind while deciding what tone of voice to write in.
Looking at forums, you would see that people are remarkably passionate about fracking.
The right response isn’t to be over-friendly (in circumstances like this, people would be distrustful of an energy company being too pally). A clear, open tone would be better.
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People interested in fracking seem to be open to learning new language, including technical terms, if it will help them understand the problems better. That’s going to be helpful in addressing a dual audience (those who are merely curious about fracking, and those who fear their house will fall into a big hole).
Audience demographics
The age, gender and location of an audience can be important for some subjects but these days, they’re not as important as they used to be – the internet is squeezing the gap. For the UK in 2015:
● 11% of adults (5.9 million) have never used the internet
● male and female internet usage is almost the same
● main users were aged 15–54, a big age range Forums won’t give you solid-evidence demographical data. You can take a stab in the dark, but it’s better to rely on other, formal user research to give you good data here. The thing you can get from forums is an idea of your audience. Fracking seems to attract many different types of people of all ages, but there Case study
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is a definite voice from householders and those worried about the environmental impact.
This means you can tailor your style, tone and sentence length to that audience.
However, fracking can start to affect anyone at any time. The audience is (potentially) change-able, based on news stories that might trigger concern or the location of a new fracking site.
Your audience is pretty big and unpredictable.
So what do you do?
Narrow it down
Like all companies, Nice Green Energy wants to expand. Ultimately, you really do have every adult homeowner or tenant in the UK
in your sights.
That’s a lot of vocabulary and a lot of information
to wade through. You need to become more targeted.
You are going to prioritise the audience to:
● people who know about fracking and are negative about it (you need to see if you can change their opinion)
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● people who don’t know about fracking and are negative about it (you need to inform them so they stop spreading inaccurate stories and rumours)
● people who know about fracking and are positive about it (turn them into advocates)
● people who want to know what fracking actually is (so hopefully, they see the positive side and not the negative)
There are many more audiences, but we’ll start with these 4.
You have a list of vocabulary in mind, a prioritised set of of concerns you are going to address with your content, and a blank page. It might look something like this: Case study
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fury
water
extracting
pollution
anger
oil
hydraulic drilling
energy
Language
natural gas
slurry
technology
foe
“frackdown”
wastewater
(media)
simpletons (one word)
fracking
fluid
Notes: Really happy to learn new language Lots
of
emotion
People
argue
about
spelling
a
lot
Searches: fracking
fracking
(in priority)
oil
fracking
gas
interesting
fracking
water
fracking
definition
shale
fracking
Priorities: effect on the planet where
(ie
is
it
near
me?)
actions
people
can
take
is
fracking
an
actual
concern?
fracking
and
politics
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Your research has told you that:
● people use ‘fracking’, not ‘hydraulic fracturing’
(but are willing to learn new language)
● the top searches you should provide content for are, in order of priority: fracking, fracking oil, fracking gas, fracking water, fracking definition, shale fracking
Your audience’s main priorities are:
● where fracking will occur (‘is it near me?’)
● the effect on the planet
● actions they can take (write to an MP, campaigning opportunities)
The audience is usually:
● people who live near fracking sites
● people worried about environment
● people who want to do something about it (not everyone worried will want to do anything) Assumptions and concerns:
1. people who are OK with fracking may not be as vocal as those who hate it
2. you need to decide what you are going to say as the effect on the planet is not just Nice Green Energy’s responsibility
3. you need to take into account nearby fracking sites that are not run by Nice Green Energy – you want to distance yourselves if they have dodgy practices
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Doing discovery
and research means
you are better
informed and better
equipped to start
tackling the content
design problem.
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But there’s still
a lot more to do
before you start
actually designing
any content.
The next step is
writing user stories
and job stories.
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User stories
and job stories
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A user story is a
way of pinning
down what the
team need to do
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...without
telling them
how to do it.
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A user story
looks like this:
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As a [person in a
particular role]
I want to [perform
an action or find
something out]
So that [I can achieve
my goal of…]
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Some examples:
As a geologist
I want access to Nice Green Energy’s raw data So that I can use it in a study I am completing As a concerned citizen who already knows about fracking
I want to know if Nice Green Energy is using fracking
So that I can contact them directly and tell them to stop
As a householder living near a proposed fracking site I want to know what effect fracking has on nearby households
So that I can make a decision about moving home
You can see that all these scenarios would result in very different content, with a different tone, style, vocabulary and focus.
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The geologist in the example might just need the data. They might not want much in the way of prose at all. After all, they are going to make up their own mind about what Nice Green Energy is doing – they just need raw data. That would be no good at all for the citizen who wants a general introduction to the subject.
User stories are great if you have a number of different audiences who might all want to consume your content. But there’s an alternative to user stories that might be better if you only have one audience, and that’s job stories.
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Job stories are for
specific tasks and
usually when you
have one audience.
They are good for
targeted actions.
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Job stories
always start with:
When [there’s a
particular situation]
I want to [perform
an action or find
something out]
So I can [achieve
my goal of…]
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An example job story:
When I am writing a report about fracking I want to get as much data as possible So I can write a comprehensive report This story could apply equally to an expert geologist or to a student of geology. In this instance, it’s the task that is more important.
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When I want to know if a company is using fracking I want to find the contact details quickly So I can contact them in the way I’d prefer Again, it doesn’t matter who you are, it depends how you get the job done.
Lastly:
When I hear fracking is proposed near where I live I want to know if it is true So I can decide what, if anything, I am going to do
It doesn’t really matter whether the user here is a homeowner or tenant, or whether they live at that address permanently or temporarily. What matters is whether they are going to be affected by fracking activity.
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User stories or
Different organisations use different story methods.
These days, I prefer job stories (I am fickle). I find humans change their behaviour a great deal, and job stories cope better with that. Sometimes, user stories can be too wide. Job stories are tidier – they offer more granularity and treat humans as a whole.
Job stories are a better choice if you only have one audience to deal with. You know you need to switch from user stories to job stories if every single user story you write begins with the same thing. If you’re writing
‘As a shopper, I…’ at the beginning of every user story, switch to job stories.
If you have multiple audiences, each of which has different needs for different kinds of content and different levels of detail, you may find user stories better.
How to write a useful job story Start with something like:
When I am concerned about the effect fracking will have on the planet
I want to find contact details of each company responsible, quickly and easily
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So I can contact them directly This is an interesting one. But there are actually two tasks here:
1. find out if Nice Green Energy is responsible 2. contact Nice Green Energy because they are responsible
So the job story becomes two stories: When I am concerned about the effect fracking will have on the planet
I want to find out who is responsible So I can contact the right organisation and
When I am concerned about the effect Nice Green Energy’s fracking will have on the planet I want to find out contact details So I can complain
A point to note on this one: some organisations don’t want to make contact easy. Some don’t want their audience to engage – which in the digital age is madness. Users will find your contact details even if you don’t provide them. So make your contact details easy to find – you’ll frustrate your users less. However, you may have to deal with this sort of thinking from others in your organisation.
Narrowing it down
When I find out fracking might happen near me
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I want to find out exactly where and when So I can decide what I am going to do What if Nice Green Energy is not fracking near someone’s house, but another energy company is?