Internet User Experience 2010
Program > Schedule > Content Strategy
2:00 p.m., July 26, 2010
Content Strategy Needs User Experience: Let's All Blow Bubbles Together (P9)
Christy Brewer, Program Content Manager, MS&LDigitalAlice Coleman, VP of User Experience, Campbell-Ewald
Some days, being a user experience professional can be lonely. You research and survey, and create a beautiful set of personas that get stuck up on a cube wall somewhere, as they fade into blind spots for those who are supposed to use them. Meanwhile, some content manager is sitting in a cube, mulling over an inventory, wondering what's useful and what's not. Too bad that poor content manager is poking around Google Trends and making assumptions on instinct alone. They might as well both be blowing bubbles in the wind.
Alice Coleman and Christy Brewer were brought into a web site redesign project at the same time. Coleman is an accomplished user experience pro. But Brewer is a jack-of-all-trades, having only dabbled in user experience research as an extension of her editorial and content creation background. Brewer knew better than to pretend she could play in Coleman's world, and began asking questions that sprang from her journalism training. Soon, they were finishing each other's sentences, and found a clear and concise way to illustrate that what Brewer needs is exactly what Coleman provides.
Brewer and Coleman moved past nomenclature and into the land of bubbles to visually define the relationships between persona research and content development. Using standard UX practices of identifying key tasks, search behavior data and web analytics, Brewer and Coleman's bubble illustrations map the path from guessing at valuable content and strategically designing content that meets actionable organizational goals.
About the Speakers
Christy Brewer is a content strategist by way of combining a Bachelor's degree in Public Relations from Wayne State University with real-world training in web development. This naturally led her to information architecture and empathy for users. Beginning with the first web site for Dodge (www.4adodge.com) in 1995, Christy instinctively placed herself in the user's shoes. Over the past 15 years, she studied content creation, editing and management while publishing content for Ford, General Motors and small businesses. While at Quicken Loans, all financial calculators were in her care as she applied multivariate testing to improve the experience, based on web analytics and usability testing results. After creating strategic content plans for USAA and Navy.com, Christy now manages editorial content for General Motors via MS&L Digital. A champion for the user experience research process, Christy believes great content can't be created without UX input.
In a myriad of roles, Alice Coleman has always been an advocate for the user. Via a winding and at some times twisted path she parlayed her 10+ years of business analyst experience naturally into Information Architect and most recently User Experience Manager roles. Always keen to understand who the user is and what they want and need, she cut 'digital' teeth on automotive brand and campaign websites for Audi and Ford and other consumer products like Hunter Douglas and White Castle. Her latest challenge was a recently launched redesign of the Navy.com website. A staunch advocate for users and lover of all things digital, Alice believes that it really is all about the user experience.
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