Web Content Designing Experiences

A section in the Razorfish FEED report we discussed a week ago addressed Web content's function - that to design answers and exploration for users.

No more pages, just smaller bits of information that can be consumed on the go.

So instead of building a site around an organization chart, which in many ways mirrors the company's hierarchy, we should build the context where the customer wants to take a seat.

Within that, as users, we can do the two most popular things we like to do online:

(1) search for answers
(2) tell stories

Answers and stories provide the framework - this is how the new site can map to the interactions the user wants to have. In the report, Tim Richard suggests that the new experience might be:

* a conversation
* a series of decisions made by the user
* an interactive storytelling session

The design revolves around what the customer needs. What the report proposes is a structured metadata systems that links content and applications together in a way that allows pages to "self assemble", based on user segmentation, process state or preference, wrapping the most pertinent content around the ruling context of the experience.

This plays quite well in the conversation around micro-media, which is fast becoming the personal communication tool of choice for the individuals you may want to reach - your customers, the analyst community, and reporters.

How

small

are

you

going

to

make

your

content

to

fit

with

you

customers'

life?

Comments

[Sean Howard]

Amazing story as ever!

It's interesting in that it also plays well into what Transmedia was supposed to be. Content that users are able to mash together and create new messages. As opposed to being another word for 360 degree campaigns.

Not sure exactly how that happened but it is the way of the industry, eh? ;)

[dominic]

Great question.

I would suggest that you have to develop chunk of content small enough so that they targer
- one topic
- and one audience

so that they can be widgetized and virally distributed to other people site and blogs and extend your reach.

Also content designers may have to provide more dynamic content, watching trends about what their target communities are interested in and respond to this demand

Best

[Carolyn Ann]

Interesting take, Valeria.

Are we becoming enamored to the short and simplistic, at the expense of the considered, but perhaps lengthy? Personally, I'm very skeptical of sound-bites; they rarely, if ever, convey much of anything. Quotes are usually taken out of context, but I feel they are, perhaps, the starting point for this short-and-sweet communication. Unfortunately, not everyone can be as communicative and witty as, say, Mark Twain.

Short and sweet has one great advantage: it's difficult to disagree with something that contains nothing of substance. Being short (and maybe sweet) the communication is amorphous, and becomes "true" by subterfuge; often such communications have a relationship to accuracy that is best described as "implausible".

A lengthy, and considered, piece becomes something dangerous in such a world: it allows for disagreement. (Oh, the horror! :-) )

It also forces us into a mode of thinking that must be quite stressful! How can anyone realize all the implications and nuance of an argument if all they have is the soundbite?

It is a sad reflection, I think, of our willingness to accept these inane communications with such alacrity. Whether it is our lack of time, competing demands reducing our ability to concentrate on a single topic or or boredom and/or eagerness for the next new thing, the short communication isn't something to be valued; it's a tool, but one that should be discarded
as quickly as possible. The eager twitterizing of us does us no favors!

You're right, though: it is important to play into this whole twitterizing; I may dislike it, but that's neither here nor there. People have been complaining about new communication medias since writing was invented! I merely, and ineptly, continue a tradition. Just ignore me! :-)

Carolyn Ann

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Sean - to me there is still the need for an editor and a storyteller who will take the conversation with users as a to do. What happened, I think, is that it is very difficult to execute - often for the "too many cooks in the kitchen" syndrome.

@Dominic - you are spot on in terms of the commercial side of the equation. Create something that is valuable and package it in a way that can be spread. From an editorial standpoint (which in a cash flow situation like the current one is taking a back seat) I lean more towards more thought out and longer conversations. Most of my posts will attest to that. The approach is about what's in it for them and at first smaller is better. But a conversation and relationship develop over time when meaning is exchanged. For that you need more than micro-media.

@Carolyn Ann - short and simple is hard to do. Simplistic, on the other hand, is easier to achieve. I would shoot for simple, for the record. I see a difference. A poem can be packed with meaning and remain short. Yes, I know, I am comparing pears to apples ;-) There is a place for lengthy and thought-out information, which will by no means take away the implications or unintended consequences of actions or beliefs. The reality is that it is easier to pay attention to something that agrees with our worldview at first. We notice what we're thinking about. But we all know that relationships and knowledge are constantly built and rebuilt, learned and unlearned. With search and story, we lower the barrier of entry and might increase the stickiness, what comes after that is still largely the product of many activities, interactions, and opportunities to take things apart instead of assembling them. In the end we talk with people where they are and how they'd like to be in the conversation as a starting point.

[Rudy]

Very thoughtful post, Valeria.

I think the challenge is to bridge the gap between those searching for answers (as I think we all do when we interact online these days) with those who are telling stories. They're certainly not mutually exclusive categories, but we still see a divide.

It seems the real innovation with social media is that it reminds people that they have more of a story to tell than they think.

[Valeria Maltoni]

I think there is also tension between the form of story, which could be long, and the brevity sought with search. We have no patience!

I love your reminder that the real innovation is in uncovering the fact that we all have more of a story to tell than we thought. Thank you.