Advanced Technical Writing 2005 Session #8

For P2, you will… 1. Analyze the content strategy of a real organization - the MSU library 2. Investigate the needs of content users and authors 3. Study the content resources & processes currently in place 4. Design a new information model for the organization 5. Present findings in the form of a report highlighting the current and recommended future content strategy

A broader view of content… If content is all of the things we say it is…interactive, granular, etc. Then you can’t adequately assess a site’s content strategy based solely on what shows up in your browser… For this project, we’ll pursue three modes of analysis to get at all the various aspects of content…

Three views of content… Genre and features A Focus onSees the site as Emphasizes the point of view of Structure & Delivery Production Models & Workflows a text; or a collection of texts the reader/user objects & actions; social space a workplace the designers & developers the admins and “authors”

Three views of content, 2 Genre and features A Focus on Structure & Delivery Production Models & Workflows Content Units & Information types What info do users need? In what forms? Objects, views, and relationships Content Authoring & Maintenance What does the org. need in its info model? How is content created & moved? You’ll analyze/designYou’ll ask…

Three views of content… Genre and features To improve… Structure & Delivery Production Models & Workflows How the information, itself, can be made more effective for users You’ll consider something like… How the org. can standardize, reuse, and display content more effectively How the org. can streamline production and management without sacrificing user-centered goals

Rockley is your guide… Genre and features When you focus on… Structure & Delivery Production Models & Workflows Ch. 6 Performing a Content Audit Ch. 10 Designing dynamic content Consult Rockley, et. al. Ch. 8 Information Modeling Ch. 9 Designing Metadata Ch. 5 Analyzing the Content Lifecycle Ch. 7 Envisioning Your Unified Content Lifecycle Ch. 11 Designing Workflow

…more… 1. We’ll have three teams, each adopting one of our three investigative foci 2. We’ll follow the Rockley text closely, supplementing with conceptual information and data gathering processes where necessary 3. The final deliverable is a report. Half focusing on the content strategy currently in place, half on a recommendation for how it should change. 4. This project can fit well with P3, which will ask you to share knowledge about the concepts we are working with here

Project 2 Basic Info, cont. 1.A memo of understanding, sent by to the library, laying out our combined research plan - each team will contribute 2.An oral report, where you will describe the methods you are employing to analyze the site, and offer preliminary findings to library staff. (March 20th) 3.A recommendation report, addressed to the library staff (Last day of class). There will be three components:

Project 2 Basic Info, cont. Choose your team based on your interests. Look ahead to project 3 and try to develop ideas during your work on project 2 A few tips…

Working with the library The library will give us some issues to begin, you (we) will propose the project scope and focus Half of this project is to document an existing information model…the other half is to make recommendations for improving it I will act as an intermediary to get the project teams organized; you’ll let me know how you think we will proceed (submitting chunks for our MOA) and I will pass the info along to the library;

You’ll focus on one of these… Genre and features To improve… Structure & Delivery Production Models & Workflows How the information, itself, can be made more effective for users You’ll consider something like… How the org. can standardize, reuse, and display content more effectively How the org. can streamline production and management without sacrificing user-centered goals

Their Ideas assessing browser add-ons assessing the current e-resources page assessment of our ILL request pages usability analysis of the Encore interface analysis of the LIR web interface for the public sector documents

Project Ideas Genres & Features - how can the search kickoff and results pages provide better feedback to users before, during, and after a search? Structure & Delivery - library users come to the library to “do research”…how can each page view help each user to “do research” better? Production models & workflows - how can more of the user-support that goes on in the library in person be captured, reflected or otherwise leveraged on the web site?

Your Project Ideas? The library has some ideas…problem areas really, but they are really interested in your thoughts about what would make good projects. They have been very impressed, in the past, by our students’ ability to identify things that need to be investigated. Think about your experiences as a library user. Have a look at the library website…any ideas come to mind?

The last XML-ercise…

What is an information model, according to Rockely? Rockley Question of the Day…

Next Time… ► Analyzing Genres & Tasks (the user perspective) ► Read Rockley Ch. 6; Derose et. al. (pdf)