Flying Dutchgirl Communications » content coaching and guides

Content coaching and guides for Cascadia.edu

Cate — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:00:34 +0000

Client: Cascadia Community College

(This page shows one part of the work I did for Cascadia. For an overview of that project, see Cascadia.edu website redesign.)

Challenges: Help Cascadia develop usable, professional-looking web content for a website redesign, and leave the marketing department with tools for maintaining the college’s voice and the content’s usability over time.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

After designing a modular, flexible site architecture for Cascadia.edu, I delivered content templates, guidelines, and standards and tutored content authors (administrators from departments across the college) in applying the guidelines and standards to their content.

The guidelines included special instructions for updating the homepage, calendar items, news items, promotions, and images. In the style guide, I included both editorial style standards and a 1-page cheat sheet of basic web writing guidelines.

» Cascadia style guide contents (PDF)

» Basic web writing guidelines included in the Cascadia style guide — see next:

Three rules for writing webpages

For Cascadia Community College web content authors

1. Make it short and simple

Make it short: Avoid long paragraphs. Divide information into easy-to-grasp chunks by using h2 (and h3) subheads, short paragraphs, and bulleted lists or numbered steps.
Stick to one thing at a time: One topic per page, one point per sentence, and one idea per paragraph.

2. Put the most important information first

Use inverted-pyramid format: As in newspaper articles, start the page with the main message, and follow it with supporting content. The “fold” is where the page content meets the bottom of the screen without scrolling: Do not put any of the most important information in your topic below the fold.
Frontload headings, list items, and links with keywords: When people arrive at a webpage, they scan headings, links, lists, and captions first. By packing those items with keywords (the words that most users would use to search on your topic), you’ll help users recognize information that’s relevant to them.

3. Be polite and straightforward

Focus on value: Focus on what the site does that is valuable from the users’ point of view, as well as how Cascadia differs from other colleges. Promoting something without substance detracts from Cascadia’s image.
Use the active voice: Address the site’s users as “you.” Don’t use language like “Students must provide their Social Security number” — instead, write “Include your Social Security number.”
Use plain language: Avoid jargon and invented terminology. If you must use a technical term, tell people what it means. To make the site accessible to international audiences, avoid American idioms, slang, metaphors, analogies, and abbreviations.
Include alt text/captioning: Include descriptive alternative text for all images and captioning for all movies, to make the site fully accessible to disabled users.
No gratuitous multimedia: Use graphics, images, and movies only to support text content, provide information or instruction, or otherwise help people complete the tasks that they have come to the site to perform. Using multimedia gratuitously distracts people from the content you want them to see and the tasks they are trying to complete.

For more details

… or to discuss your project, contact us.

Disaster preparedness toolkit for nonprofits

Cate — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:00:54 +0000

“Cate transformed a traditional piece of sequential learning into a dynamic online experience.”

Client: Northern California Grantmakers, San Francisco

Challenges: Northern California Grantmakers was publishing an online toolkit of guidelines and checklists to help foundations prepare their facilities and grantmaking capabilities in case of a major emergency. NCG’s staff had compiled useful content, but the content needed adjustment to meet basic guidelines for website usability.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

To make the toolkit “web ready,” I provided these deliverables:

Website outline with an easy-to-understand name for each page
Homepage wireframe that designated space to describe the purpose of the toolkit and links to all of the key sections
Edited content with edits focused on a few kinds of changes that would make the site easier to navigate and help to optimize it for searching

I also provided content guidelines to help NCG produce more consistent, user friendly, and searchable content while keeping budgets for future website updates to a minimum.

New homepage for toolkit

Live page:
NCG disaster preparedness toolkit

Cascadia.edu website redesign

Cate — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:00:10 +0000

“Thank you for all you have done during this project! Your knowledge and skills, your patience and persistence, your continual search for information about effective sites, and on and on… We’ve learned a lot from you and have appreciated your commitment to quality.” —Linda Hendrickson, Cascadia Community College

Client: Cascadia Community College is a feeder school for the University of Washington. It shares its state-of-the-art, wetland-lined campus with UW Bothell. The magazine Washington Monthly named Cascadia the No. 2 community college in the United States.

Challenges: Cascadia’s old website got little traffic because users found it hard to find what they needed, even if the information did exist on the site. The site did not communicate the college’s strengths or provide much information that prospective college students commonly look for. The site was both out-of-date and hard to update.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

To plan and create Cascadia’s new website, I worked with Cascadia’s marketing and communications department and dozens of members of college staff and administration, providing these deliverables:

Homepage design for Cascadia.edu
Cascadia.edu information architecture and content migration plan
Content coaching, guides, and templates for content authors, including standards and guidelines for metadata and microcontent (for usability and search optimization)
Writing and editing for selected pages
Wireframes for web applications
Goals and audiences brief (summary of responses to a strategy questionnaire filled out during a day-long meeting with stakeholders)
Brand plan including audience definition, site priorities, and audience profiles (developed with Tauber-Kienan Associates)
Consulting on social media strategy
Expert evaluation of earlier proposed design

Web application for child welfare professionals

Cate — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:00:07 +0000

Client: Administrative Office of the Courts (State of California), San Francisco

Challenges: AOC asked me to copyedit “static text” for an online application, but little of the copy in the application met usability standards for user interfaces. The site provides resources for child welfare attorneys and social workers.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

With the client’s permission, I rewrote virtually all of the copy for the application. Key improvements included these changes:

Developed information architecture: Improved navigation in the application, writing navigation labels that were easy to understand and comprehensive.
Prioritized information: Retooled planned page layout and content so that the most-used information appeared high on each page.
Rewrote for maximum “information scent”: Rewrote the copy into concise, active sentences packed with keywords that orient users.
Made other usability recommendations: Recommended changes to meet other website usability standards. Examples: Add a “Search” label next to the search box; activate functionality with the Return key; and streamline functionality of site registration form.

Live page:
California Dependency Online Guide

Templates and copywriting for banking, finance, and tax content

Cate — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 18:00:15 +0000

Clients/employers: Intuit and World Savings

Challenges: Support marketing goals by designing content templates and writing clear, concise copy about the benefits and features of personal finance and tax software, financial services, and business services.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

Using a strategic, user-centered approach, I developed content templates for product descriptions and ongoing promotional campaigns on Intuit.com. Working with product managers, I edited product descriptions and promotions for clarity, Intuit style, length, and usability.

Products and services included Intuit software (QuickBooks, Quicken, and TurboTax), including online banking and tax preparation features; World Savings financial services (home loans, bank accounts, retirement accounts); and Intuit business services (IntuitAdvisor.com, payroll tools).

For more details

… or to discuss your project, contact us.

User interface writing and guidelines for intranet applications

Cate — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 18:00:41 +0000

Client/employer: Intuit

Challenges: Reduce internal support and operations costs, increase employees’ use of benefits programs, and improve productivity and internal communication.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

I wrote user interface copy and designed interaction for a variety of intranet applications, including:

An internal news and information site — with interfaces for both readers and authors of articles, and guidelines for authors
A stock purchase plan signup tool for employees; see Employee Signup for Stock Purchase Plan
A “pay decision tool” for managers

I wrote navigation and other labels, onscreen instructions, error messages, help, and automatically generated emails.

For more details

… or to discuss your project, contact us.

Content and UI writing for caregiver resource site

Cate — Sun, 01 Oct 2000 17:00:25 +0000

“Caregiving professionals are always looking for resources they can confidently recommend to families. Cate’s concise, clear descriptions made a great contribution to the CaregiverZone site’s credibility among my colleagues.” Dean Kidder, RN, Director of Business Development

Client: CaregiverZone, a resource site for caregivers of elderly relatives; www.caregiverzone.com

Challenges: Provide informational support for family members making important and sometimes urgent decisions about a relative’s treatment, care, or placement in an institution. Treat an emotionally sensitive topic with sensitivity while providing clear, concise information on health care, health insurance, and legal issues.

Dutchgirl’s solutions

Working with staff, outside health care experts, and usability consultants, I provided these deliverables:

Concise descriptions of caregiving resources in over 100 categories, from Meals on Wheels programs to Medicare rules
User interface copy for site registration, sign-in, and sign-out, including contextual help, error messages, and automatically generated email messages
Other site content, such as company information
A style guide for content and user interface copy

America Online introduced CaregiverZone as its caregiving portal in summer 2000. USA Today named it a “hot site” in March 2000.

For more details

… or to discuss your project, contact us.