Content Strategy Gut Checks: The Focus Group

Content Strategy Gut Checks: The Focus Group is the second in a series of six posts discussing the testing of content and content strategy models in usability and user testing. Did you miss the first post? Read Part One: Content Strategy Gut Checks: The Café Test.

“The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions,” — Claude Levi-Strauss

The way I see it, Claude Levi-Strauss’ statement sums up how I view testing, and (in a way) content strategy. The questions we craft and ask of users are crucial for informing the type of data we ultimately use and produce for our digital experiences. And when it comes to posing those questions to gut check our content and content strategy, one of the best tools at our disposal is the focus group.

For starters, I think it’s important to point out that focus groups are NOT usability tests. Focus groups are what I refer to as user tests or user dialogues, which have very different goals from usability testing. A good usability test should focus more on observation and provide us answers with how well a user was able to use and experience both the interface and the data itself. Conversely, if we want to assess users thoughts, feelings or attitudes about a product or our Web site, we’d leverage a focus group.

It’s the difference of what users say vs. what they do — and in the best of all possible worlds, we’ll be able to leverage both insights when planning for content strategy.

When To Use Focus Groups

I personally believe focus groups should be performed early in any web project to both help discover insights into your target audience and prove out any assumptions you might have made regarding their Personal-Behavioral Context or Situational Context (did you really think you’d get through a post on my site without me making a plug for context?).

Also, consider using a focus group if:

How To Get Started

Invite 6 to 12 people to participate in for each focus group session. Depending on your budget or the scope of your project you may need several sessions to get a representative sampling of your targets. Pre-screen to be sure participants are from your target via questionnaire. It is absolutely crucial that the people you invite be from your target demographic. If they aren’t, you’re wasting time and client dollars.

In your invitation to participants, do your best to provide a high-level agenda and include any issues that you’ll be tackling during your session. The focus group itself should last 60 to 90 minutes (any longer and you’d best buy them a meal and plan to bring them back the next day).

Prepare up front. State the purpose of the focus group and provide an outline to the day’s activities. If it’s required of your client (or if you just want to cover all your bases) have them sign a consent form after you’ve given your explanation (e.g.: [PDF]) and bring it to the group. Collect your consent prior to giving them access to other members of the group or the focus group room.

Set up the focus group in an room or location that offers little to no distraction. You want the participants’ full attention since the end results will be analytical reports. Try to set your test group around a table to encourage conversation. You want the group to have the ability to make chatter and if it’s a circular or ovular table, you’ll have a better vantage point to document facial reactions or pose immediate follow up questions.

Before you begin the questioning, ask the participants to introduce themselves and/or wear nametags. Focus groups are a tag team effort (you need a strong moderator and someone to document findings, discretely if possible). It’s the moderator’s job to be aware of the energy in the room. They also need to step in if one person is dominating a conversation and allow for cognitive breaks when it appears they’re needed. The moderator has to keep discussions flowing and keep the group focused on the issues you want to document.

The recorder should only focus on documenting the findings, and he should capture facial expressions, audio, notes on findings etc. I’ve always found it helpful to color code notes per participant or attach a headshot to individual notes when I’m acting as a recorder in a focus group.

Questions, Questions, Questions

A focus group will only be successful if the questions asked are open and neutral. The wording is crucial, so channel your inner Claude Levi-Strauss and be the wise man. Pay special attention to the inflection and tone taken posing a question to the group. The wrong wording or inflection might taint the responses.

Ask the target audience about how they use the web, what their expectations are of what types of content would be on your Web site. If it’s a new section, get their thoughts on how successful their efforts have been in seeking the proposed content. If they have used that type of content, document their experiences. What worked? What didn’t? What would they have preferred to see? It’s here that we start to find the bits that we can apply to situational context and scratch at those oh so elusive behaviors.

Other questions a moderator could pose to a focus group that help influence content strategy include:

There are tons of questions and paths that can be followed, but that would be a MUCH longer post.

Deliverables

Focus groups are for gathering thoughts, feelings or attitudes. That means you need qualitative analysis reports. These should be written for each session. The reports should contain the relevant background of participants who attended individual groups. Dedicate a single report to each session and be sure to have any questions you may have gathered in the screening questionnaire included in your reporting as well.

If you videotape the session, use clips and captures in your reporting to emphasize thoughts and support any hypothesis you had about content, data and design needs.

The more data you have to work with, the easier it will be to make relevant Behavioral/Situational personas to apply to your content strategy project. Client deliverables might include an executive summary, or quotes and images from the session, but the full report should be more useful to your design team and content/digital strategists.

Summing It Up

Focus groups are meant to help predict consumer responses to a site or feature. It’s crucial to know how consumers feel about a project prior to really getting down to the heavier design phase and focus groups are a great forum to getting those feelings out into the open. They require patience and a really solid moderator who can manage conflict and keep the group on the task at hand.

I fully believe great focus groups can be done independent of agencies that specialize in it. An independent content strategist need only be sure he or she has specific plan and goals in mind prior to doing the focus group. If you don’t think you can handle the moderation, find someone internally who can manage conflict or multiple personalities.

Even if you do select an agency to perform your focus group testing, make sure you have influence over the questions asked. A good content strategist should walk away knowing the situations that will call for content and have a better idea of the mix that will be needed to address those situations.

What are your experiences with focus groups? Do you find them useful in planning for content strategies? Drop your thoughts into the comments below.

Content Strategy Gut Checks: The Café Test

Content Strategy Gut Checks: The Café Test is the first in a series of six blog posts accounting for the testing of content and content strategy models in usability testing.

Content strategy can be a long and drawn out process. There is an incredible amount of work that goes into developing and implementing content strategy, so it always frustrates me to learn that many clients are being provided with usability tests that only focus on the user interface and the navigation of a Web site.

This isn’t entirely surprising, as many sites are not created using a “content out approach (see also: @Malarkey), and often times content testing isn’t suggested or performed until post launch — a disastrous folly in its own right.

I’m not advocating that EVERY site should be designed in a content out way, but I do believe that content strategy and its eventual product are deserving of some very specific questions and equal time in usability testing. And one of the best methods for getting a gut check for a site’s content (and content strategy), especially in the early days of your project, is the Café Test.

How To Get Started

If you’re not familiar with café testing, it’s exactly what you would assume it might be. It requires the tester to plop himself in a high traffic area, like a café (preferably one where your target user might be) to approach potential users. The person giving the test should use a sign to attract potential participants or come up with a clever hustle to draw them in. Coffee, tea, beer or $5 usually does the trick.

Once you have a properly imbibed and willing participant, ask for a few demographic questions. How old are they? What is their education level? Have they participated in a study like this before? What do they do for a living? Have them sign a consent form if your company/client requires it (I’ll provide an example consent form a in my next post).

After you’ve got the basic info and signed consent, load up your site via laptop, iPad or your mobile and let them spend some time interacting with your content, not just the site itself.

Should your study require it, direct them to perform a few tasks using the site’s intended UI and PAY CLOSE ATTENTION. This is where café testing gets a little anthropological. Take photos or video if they’ll let you. Study how they interact with the site, paying close attention to how much they read, what their initial impressions are and how they move through the content. Allow them a good five to 10 minutes to interact with the content and then follow their play time with a few questions.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Café tests should always ask specific questions about the content, but they should be kept simple. Remember, this isn’t a focus group, it’s a gut check to see if we’re on the right track and we’ve only bought them a cup of coffee. If we bought them dinner or paid for them to miss work, we could take greater liberties with our requests.

Some sample questions could be:
1. How easy was the [content] for you to understand?
2. Did you believe the [content] was interesting? Explain why or why not.
3. What was the most helpful piece of [content] on the page?
4. Could the [content] have been organized, written or presented in a different way to be more useful?
5. What do you think the [content's] intended purpose was?

(NOTE: [content] could be anything in this case. It could be a specific video, form, photo gallery, text, etc.)

These questions should be written up or recorded and then organized into a report.

Deliverables

The goal of the café test is to obtain a gut check and document the informal glimpses into the perceptions of the public when it comes to your site and its content. They are most useful when tasks are simple enough that formal usability testing may be overkill, or when time is of the essence (like, we launch next week OMG!). The downside is that the target users are not always available.

Deliverables for site stakeholders and (maybe) clients include: spreadsheets, photos, videos, quotes and qualitative comments.

Summing It Up

During the initial stages of your project, café testing can be especially helpful because it’s relatively cheap, and the results will help you get priorities in order or disprove a hypothesis about user behaviors or their potential for comprehension early on.

That said, café testing requires three things to be really successful — well-defined questions, a reasonable testing window (no more than 15 minutes of your subject’s time should be taken) and a decent sampling of users that meet your demographic. If you don’t know where to find them, ask a user. People like to herd and flock, so chances are your users can point you in the right direction.

While the café test isn’t the most scientific of models we could use to analyze our users and content, it starts to give us some early impressions and further hone our strategic goals as we build our site. They’re also a lot of fun to administer and who knows, you just might make a new friend.

Next up, we’ll take a look at First Impressions testing. Stay tuned.

Photo By: Johannes Kleske. Used via: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Marriage Lessons: Content Strategy and Information Architecture

Sometimes, the marriage of content strategy and user experience can be a tricky thing. The relationship forces an individual primarily focused on making a site usable, functional and beautiful to play nice with a strategist, who is focused on what populates that lovely work of code. Often times the two practices seem to be at constant odds with one another, but when content strategy and user experience work with common purpose (to make the Web a more usable place), amazing things can happen.

The secret to a happy and healthy UX/Content Strategy marriage comes not only with shared purpose, but lies within the ability for one to be an advocate for the other’s work. I can say with no reservations that without the guidance of Erika, my partner of the last three years, that my work would have suffered. She makes me appear to be much smarter than I actually am and aside from being a constant advocate for content strategy, you couldn’t ask for a nicer person to have to spend your days with.

So you can imagine how unhappy I am to report that she left me (well, the agency) on Friday.

To say that Erika’s departure is painful is a gross understatement. You see, there’s a special bond (a link if you will) that digital geeks who seriously LOVE building sites share. I believe that we worked so well together because for as long as I’ve known her, Erika has approached Web sites with content in mind.

Erika and I have shared similar paths, as did anyone who began working with code and Web sites in the 90s. At that time, coders had to be cognizant of the content, because there were no other members of a web team. We were the “Webmasters,” “Web Editors” and “Site Masters.” We were the sole owners of the code, the copywriters and the editors of content and the presence we were called upon to create. We had no choice than to be intimately connected to the design and the material that populated it.

It wasn’t until the web started evolving beyond “brochure ware” that we were called to start thinking about content differently for web users. During that time, UX started down a different path and content strategy began to emerge, but for Erika, and many other UX pros, content strategy was already embedded into their DNA and they’re better for it.

Recently, the explosion of focus on content strategy has brought much attention to the space and folks who didn’t have this early experience in design (and even several who did) are starting to get territorial over deliverables and responsibilities. A lot of content strategists and UX pros have started writing about the relationship and exploring it in greater detail. For the most part, I believe the discussions have been positive.

Two strong examples of the positive looks that come to mind include: Kristina Halvorson’s article for UX Mag and my Campbell-Ewald colleague Chris Moritz’s talk on the Overlaps and Underpinnings of CS and UX.

These are great places to start and both remind us that there is room for both the user experience professional and the content strategist to do their work. We just have to remember that we all have a common goal … to make the Web a more useful and usable place.

Consequently, Campbell-Ewald is looking for a top-notch information architect. You’ll get to work alongside people who love the interactive space and are doing some fantastic work in content strategy and interactive design. Check out the job listing and come work with us in the Mitten: Information Architect Job Posting.

Hug your IA today!

Chain Link Photo used via Creative Commons License. Photographer: Matti Mattila

Review: The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane

Brilliant. Funny. Useful. All words that quickly sum up Erin Kissane’s Elements of Content Strategy.

Kissane’s work is part of the A Book Apart series, which is bills its titles as “Brief books for people who build websites.” Elements of Content Strategy definitely follows that formula, yet still feels like a complete examination of the topic.

This work was absolutely needed in the content strategy space and couldn’t have come at a more important time given the explosion of interest in what we do. Elements doesn’t attempt to make an argument for the field’s practice, nor does it try to teach one how to get started. What it does, brilliantly, is describe the practice’s individual parts, pieces and points of view. In doing so, we start to learn how we got here in the first place and get an idea of where the field is going.

In this aim, Kissane comes through with true verve. Her writing is funny, witty and easy to understand (read as: minimal emphasis on jargon). The text flows in an entirely logical order, beginning with shared values that every content strategist should be paying close attention to. Here she touches on why content deserves special attention in the first place and what beliefs drive that focus.

She follows this with a thorough examination of the craft itself, reviewing various mindsets that content strategists tend to have when they approach their work. I very much enjoyed her humorous narrative looks into the minds of Editors, Curators, Marketers and Information Scientists and appreciated that she took the time to illuminate the points of view (and baggage) that those very different perspectives bring forward when practicing content strategy.

It’s in those explorations that Kissane fills the biggest gaps in the conversation around content strategy. With so many voices coming from different disciplines, she succeeds in bringing the reader to the realization that though we all have a different lens for our focus, the shared principles are the end goal. This chapter also supports my personal belief that most content strategists need to spend some time digging into each of these four areas to deliver a complete content strategy, as focusing on a single style will inevitably leave a hole in the end product.

Following the examination of the craft, Kissane provides insights into the tools and techniques that a content strategist has at her disposal. She addresses techniques for a wide range of CS deliverables; from strategy and design to content planning and curation. What I especially liked about this section was Kissane’s reassurance that not every tool is needed for every situation. More often than not, I find that many people see content strategy as a long, drawn out process that has too many steps. Elements of Content Strategy reminds us that what is truly important is having a communication strategy and set of deliverables that makes sense for our end user and our internal team that’s executing the production of content. Here you’ll also find some nice examples of content templates and get some insight into how Kissane approaches a project. All useful things.

In summation, the book is entirely useful and would serve both the experienced and novice content strategist well. For me, a book’s true value is whether or not I’m willing to let it take up the valuable real estate I set aside on my desk for reference. I’m happy to say that a paperback copy, just like the other titles in the A Book Apart series, already has a home waiting for it.

One more thing: Aside from being a great read, the book itself is beautifully designed. Credit for that goes to Jason Santa Maria. I’m a firm believer that beautiful design makes things inherently more approachable and Jason’s lovely choice of type and use of color helped make Elements of Content Strategy a joy to read.

The book will be released on March 8. A Book Apart isn’t taking pre-orders, but you’ll be able to buy it here next Tuesday.

Disclaimer: I feel it appropriate to mention that one of my charts and some of my thoughts were featured in the first chapter of this book. And while I’m humbled to be even the smallest of contributors to this text, I don’t believe it in any way influences my endorsement of the fine work that Erin has done.

Context in Content Strategy: Ambient Data

Context in Content Strategy: Situational-Behavioral Context is the final part of a series of posts discussing the need to account for context in the practice of content strategy. Did you miss the first four?

• Read Part One: Context in Content Strategy: Defining Context
• Read Part Two: Context in Content Strategy: Personal-Behavioral Context
• Read Part Three: Context in Content Strategy: Personal-Situational Context
• Read Part Four: Context in Content Strategy: Situational-Behavioral Context

Though ambient factors sometimes fall into the information we gather and analyze when preparing for Personal-Behavioral Context, they call for some special attention when planning content.

Why do they call for this specialized treatment? One need not look too far past the photo above for the answer. Laptop user? Sitting up. iPad user? Leaning back.

A user’s posture matters to us, partly, in that it provides insight into her cognitive capacity for learning, appetite for content and preferences on the way the information is presented and designed. And while we have no way of always knowing exactly what posture a user may or may not be in, we can start to make some assumptions on how to present information based on the user interface options available on the device of her choosing.

For example, the leaned back user might have a higher threshold and appetite for elegant information design with a mix of media. That means the content should play nicely with the pinches, pulls and taps that come with a tablet device. Conversely, someone sitting up at a desktop PC or laptop might find relative linking and taxonomic structures to be more valuable because they’re alert, upright and (possibly) research oriented. I’d argue that we can even make the assertion that the user’s personal context and cognitive capacity would be different if the MacBook user were on a PC (but that’s a whole other post and gets super granular). Mobile users are an entirely different breed. They’re leaned forward.

Now, all this concern with lean forward, lean back and upright does not necessarily mean content strategists have to become Jane Goodall and study users the way she studies the Chimpanzees of Gombe. We’d never get a site live if we attempted to be that deep or narrowcasted. Still, posture and the way we learn differently on the various devices that access the web do call for our attention and thought … because the same content won’t be interpreted or learned in the same way across different devices. Our context changes because the things we use and our own physical actions change with each new gizmo.

If we’re calling for different content, it requires a different template or stylesheet for display and it’s entirely possible thanks to ever evolving code. This type of design (Responsive Web Design) is currently an area of great interest and a lot of debate, so it’s worth looking into if you’re not familiar with it. I won’t dig into all of the different ways content should or can be presented by different devices here. Special Note: Responsive Web Design can also be a way to attempt to force context of a site that was initially meant for viewing on a specific resolution. Without doing the additional work of having a content strategy, specific to the channel it’s attempting to fit, it’ll be pretty much useless. My only wish is that you start to pay closer attention to different devices when you’re creating your content strategies.

That said, device type is just one of the many ambient factors a content strategist can focus on.

Defining “Ambient”

“Ambient” by definition, is an adjective meaning:
1. of the surrounding area or environment or surrounding on all sides.
2. completely surrounding; encompassing: the ambient air.

The traditional definition starts to scratch the itch, but for content strategy purposes, we’ll refer to “ambient data” as being any factor of a user’s surrounding environment, which could influence their understanding of our content. Some of the other factors are included in the absolutely non-comprehensive things below:

• Time
• Connection type
• Geo-Location
• Browser
• Access Device (desktop, laptop, mobile, tablet, etc.)
• Weather Conditions
• Language Settings

Publishers have already started to play with elements of time. In November of 2009 Esquire published an augmented reality issue. One of their regular features, Funny Joke Told By A Beautiful Woman, featured three different jokes all told by Gillian Jacobs. One was in the physical print edition while the second and third were accessed through the augmented reality application. The third joke could only be accessed after midnight (when it became a ‘dirty’ joke told by a beautiful woman). You can learn more about it here.

It’s a bit of a novelty in this application, but is definitely something to think about if you’re selling a product or providing a service that might be require different content depending on the time of access. Similarly, weather could be a key factor that influences the way you present content. Imagine a nursery’s content shifting with the seasons or growing periods or reconfiguring to snow removal services during the winter months. Special mobile templates could allow for access to what’s most important to their customers based on events like … snowpocalypse.

Because ambient factors are a small piece of the bigger contextual puzzle, I won’t write dive any deeper into all of the factors. Sometimes none of the factors will fit for a content strategy project, while others may call for several. Point being, starting to think about ambient factors will only become more important as demands for more content come rolling in.

As the wranglers of content and the advocates for its brilliance, content strategists are responsible for understanding which ambient factors make the most sense for their projects. Not every client will be able to fund or be ready to cope with accounting for all of these factors when all they thought they needed was a site redesign. Start by offering a client small bites. Hold their hands while they take baby steps. Dip one toe in the water at a time and prove it through analytics and engagement.

Closing Argument For Context

Since this is the last post in this series, I wanted to take a moment to review context. Though all of the charts, big words and seemingly endless calls for you to research your user to no end seem somewhat taxing, they’re incredibly important. Above all, content strategy is about making content better. Better content achieves business goals, user goals and has substance above everything else. Context is what gives you that substance. It’s not a silver bullet, but it is the secret sauce that makes content engaging (or influential) enough to make your users give a damn.

Thanks for hanging in there with me through these long posts and for the notes, comments and tweets that have kept me going and helped me to breathe some much needed life and energy back into this dormant Web presence. For the first time in a long time, I’m really enjoying writing again and all of you have a lot to do with that. Cheers, and thanks for reading the series.

Photo by Alui0000 and used under Creative Commons License.