Much of my recent work has been spent right in the center of where strategy and tactics meet. I’m smack dab in the middle of a grey area surrounded by branding, content development, information organization, usability and design.

One of the things I’ve spent much of my time working with is content, mainly the written variety. How it’s structured, how it’s delivered, and how it’s designed. As I’ve talked about recently, content is the hardest part of the projects I work on. It’s also the most important. Without it your left with a hallow shell that is ultimately meaningless. For some reason, when it comes to the Web anyway, there is a whole lot of time and effort spent on branding and marketing and design and very little spent on those things that, in my mind anyway, are much more important — content, accessibility, customer relationship.

The Web allows people much more access to intellectual property online. Now more than ever companies need to worry about what they are saying online. But it seems they still don’t get it.

I see a sore need for what I’ll call “usable content.” I thought I’d take a moment and let y’all know what I think usable content is, and what I think it isn’t. Of course, this is pretty general and content needs to be tailored to your goals and audience. Take this with a grain of salt.

What Usable Content Is

• Usable content is clear and easy to understand.
• Usable content can bridge gaps—things like language barriers, disability and cultural differences.
• Usable content is meaningful.
• Usable content makes the reader feel smart.
• Usable content is goal and audience appropriate.
• It’s thought-out, planned and constantly maintained.
• It’s fresh, light and lively.
• It’s content that is organized in a way that people understand and can get their mind around.
• It’s designed to be accessible.
• It’s reusable and shareable, readily available and easy to locate.
• It’s straightforward, open and honest and to the point.
• It encourages feedback and is engineered for conversation.
• It’s hard work, but worthy of the job.

What Usable Content Is Not

• Usable content is not clever, obtuse or misleading.
• It’s not marketing drivel, or bland branding messages.
• It’s not longwinded.
• It’s not written at the highest possible reading level.
• It’s doesn’t use “big words” unless they are needed.
• It’s not legalese.
• It’s not double talk.
• It’s not an afterthought.
• It’s not a mission statement.
• It’s not an org chart.

Filed under: Web Development