Content-led redesign

Highlights: Content audit, data analysis, user research, content migration, content operations management, content governance and workflow planning

TL;dr: I led a full overhaul of the course catalogue for the provincial distance learning provider in Alberta, building backwards based on unique needs for student and teacher audiences. I consulted with our web agency to redesign the course catalogue to support the needs of content authors and workflow, as well as our different end user groups. 69% of users surveyed were satisfied or very satisfied with the result, and our web designers won an Ember for Best Mobile Experience for the launch.

People problem

Students and schools could not easily find all of the information they needed from Alberta Distance Learning Centre’s course catalogue.

My strategy

Use student and teacher needs to lead the redesign of a course catalogue for over 275 courses with up to six different variations for each course.

What I did

Evaluate

• Ran a quantitative & qualitative content audit of the current courses and courses to be added (I managed a team and individually contributed to this audit)

• Reviewed Google Analytics to learn about user behaviour

• Created and sent a survey to user groups to determine their unique key needs

Design

• Built a metadata framework for organizing common info based on the content audit

• Consulted with web developers to build a content management system that supported content author needs and displayed content based on user needs

• Created content templates for each course variation to guide content authors, enhance consistency of content staging, and support structured content in the eventual content management system

• Created a process manual and product dictionary for content authors present and future

• Created and supervised a content governance workflow, including steps for drafting, editing, and fact-checking prior to publication

Execution

• Trained team of content authors on migration process

• Led testing of migrated content against user personas based on data from user surveys

• Created and managed governance schedule based on trigger events in the organization

• Created and shared templates to support scheduled content maintenance

The results

• The annual survey of school partners indicated post-launch that 30% of school partners were very satisfied, 39% were satisfied and only 3% were dissatisfied with ADLC’s course catalogue.

• The web team on this project (Paper Leaf) received the 2017 Digital Alberta Ember Award for Best Mobile Experience for their work and our collaboration on this project.