In his presentation to Michigan Usability Professionals February 10, 2011, Chris Moritz of Campbell-Ewald proposed “information architects and content strategists can create the same deliverables. The difference is what you spend the bulk of your time on.”
Thanks Chris for a great presentation and for posting your slides online. Here are my notes from his talk:
- What everyone thinks content creation is:
- create
- review
- approve
- What content creation actually is:
- audit
- analyze
- strategize
- categorize
- structure
- create
- review
- approve
- publish
- update
- archive
- Some people argue that information architecture and content strategy are:
- the same
- completely different
- partners
- redundant
- There is no single way to do information architecture and content strategy; it depends on the project.
Chris shared a chart used in Campbell-Ewald projects to define responsibility for tasks and deliverables:
Additional notes
- Focus your content creation by developing strategic pillars.
- What’s different between information architects and content strategists? Content strategists need to know more of what’s going on page(s).
- Information architects define structure. Content strategists define mass. Creatives define surface.
- Ensure continuity between information architects and content strategists by having them report to same person. If it’s a small project, have one person manage content strategy and information architecture.
- Good resources for content strategy and writing:
- Content Strategy for the Web by Kristine Halvorson
- Letting Go of the Words by Ginny Redish.
Posted by Deborah Edwards-Onoro, an officer for Michigan Usability Professionals’ Association since 2008. She owns Lireo Designs, a web development company, is a group leader of Refresh Detroit and Tweetea. You can find her tweeting about usability, user experience, accessibility and higher education @redcrew.
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