Detail: Plan and Manage Content

Content entices, informs, and guides users around and through your website. Selecting the right editorial tone and content to enhance your business requires a mix of skills. Use the links below for an overview of these activities. For details about a role, activity, or artifact in the diagram, click on its icon.

More detail: Purpose - How to Staff

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Purpose

The purpose of this workflow detail is to:

• Evaluate the business strategy including brand, industry and enterprise analyses, and user research with an eye towards establishing an appropriate editorial direction and content offering for the site or system
• Establish a voice and tone for the business offering
• Prepare a content outline identifying key content elements and proposed organization
• Address content sourcing issues
• Address content management and operational support issues: define processes and identify tools that will enable the organization to create and manage their content offering

How to Staff

The Role: Content Manager defines the content inventory with the support of the Role: Information Architect. These two roles collaborate on early clustering and organization of information. Later, their view of the information may diverge because the Content Manager's goal is to organize information for ease of maintenance by Content Editors and access by the system; the Information Architect's goal is to organize information for ease of use by end-users.

By assessing existing content, the Role: Content Manager can collaborate with key stakeholders and the Role: Content Editor to determine the best approach for handling existing and newly developed content needed for the project. In projects using third-party content management systems, the Role: Software Architect often contributes the technical perspective on how content can be organized and its workflow facilitated using the capabilities of the content management system.

The Role: Content Editor creates the Artifact: Content Development Guide, which addresses supporting business and brand strategy through editorial voice and tone as well as the content management approach. The Role: Creative Concept Director supports the Role: Content Editor to ensure that the editorial content helps to achieve the envisioned user experience.