FAQs - not great for UX, whatever Nielsen says

At the end of last year, Nielsen Norman Group published an article talking up the website FAQ. I usually only post on positives and what I think is good advice, so didn't blog about this as I didn't agree. However, a couple of responses to this contentious article are well worth a read.

IA & Content Strategy - my bluffers guide to open source developers

I gave a presentation today at the Edinburgh Open Source Breakfast session, a monthly developers meet up. I had 40 minutes on the topic of information architecture and content strategy so even squeezing in a bluffer's guide was a bit of a tall order.

Ongoing CMS development - the NY Times

A really nice article from the developers of the New York Times' in-house content management system, Scoop. How they evolved it, why and how, and where they're heading next.

Email content management checklist

An excellent piece from Georgy Cohen for higher ed content strategy website meetcontent.com. If you're involved in regular email communications you should check your activity against her sound advice.

Content strategy & CMS management podcast

I've recently discovered, and been listening to, a podcast series called - Insert Content Here. It's produced by a company specialising in Drupal CMS development (Lullabot) but the majority of features are tech-agnostic; instead focusing on content management strategy.

Responsive design is a content management issue

Responsive design - a single design that changes to suit the size of the screen - is an increasingly adopted approach. Karen McGrane explains why this is a content issue first and foremost, and shares a few anecdotes.

Ginny Reddish on content strategy

Ginny Reddish, author of the book on web writing - Letting Go of the Words - presented at a content strategy conference in London earlier this year. Her slides are available via her website.

People - the biggest challenge in content management

I had a flick through a slide deck by content strategist and author Sara Wachter-Boettcher the other day. A couple of quotes really stood out for me and set me reflecting on the major CMS project we're working on right now.

Putting service design ahead of the politics

The "fiasco" around the US public health service website HealthCare.gov and President Obama's announcement about it has prompted quite a lot of articles and opinions. In among the doom and gloom and politics, there were some good nuggets for those of us involved in public sector web development.

Content modelling resources

We're in the process of planning a new corporate content management system and I'm determined to give our website content the attention it deserves. This has driven me to read up on content modelling, push out to a group of colleagues and begin the journey. These articles & presentations have proved really helpful in getting things going...

Content planning for responsive websites

A presentation by meetcontent.com's Georgy Cohen looking at the challenges to content being presented by the trend towards responsive website designs. Includes lots of examples of responsive designs around US universities.

UX Scotland 2013 - slides, resources & write up

The UX Scotland conference took place 20 & 21 June here in Edinburgh and I was lucky enough to go along. Lots of great resources from the sessions are now online, and I've summarised a few notes I jotted as I listened.

Big content strategy challenges from Rahel Bailie

At last week's UXPA Scotland session, we were lucky enough to have author and content strategist Rahel Anne Bailie. Her talk prompted a bit of food-for-thought for me, and highlighted a few resources and bits of follow up reading.

The future of content management - Karen McGrane

Content strategist Karen McGrane gives an hour long presentation on where she sees web content consumption going and the challenges this presents to web publishers. To be fair, it's not just the future - these are the challenges we're facing right now and have been for a good while.

Top tasks vary by medium - McGovern

Gerry McGovern presents an overview of his research for Cisco highlighting that your target audience is likely to have a different set of top tasks depending on how they engage with you.

Confab Content Strategy Conference write up

Gutted that I couldn't go to the London content strategy conference, Confab 2013 as it has a number of sessions with authors, thinkers and speakers I admire. Thankfully, Martin Belam has written blog posts to summarise each session.

The cost of adding

Gerry McGovern writes about the hidden costs of adding content and features. It's easier and in our nature to look to add rather than remove, but we rarely think about the implications.

Responsive design strategy

Jared Spool has written a really nice article pulling together the key considerations when devising a strategy to achieve a responsive design - a site layout and content structure approach that adapts according to the device your website visitor is using.

Organisational relationships are essential for good website management

Paul Boag explores the real reasons why projects don't deliver and websites turn bad - people and politics. Thankfully he also provides great suggestions to help overcome these problems.

CMS users' UX matters

No matter how great your website design, no matter how usable the interface, no matter how well organised the IA - if your content management system is a beast your editors will suffer and with it, ultimately your website. Karen McGrane provides advice on how to address this.