Pair Writing: Better content, more customer focused

Transcript

1. Pair writing: better content, more customer- focused Gerry McGovern, Bjørn Bergslien, Audun Rundberg 11 February 2015
2. Audun @audunru Bjørn @bbergslien This is what we look like
3. Construction company University Global fertilizer company Bank
4. Traditional content creation processes are sort of broken...
5. We write without getting any critical input from others Photo: nivekhmng / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
6. Who’s asking... • Why are we creating this content? • What is the purpose of this content? • How does this content support our business goals? • Who will be reading this content? • And why will they read it? • Could this be a video or an illustration instead of text?
7. Everyone is publishing their own stuff - «Silo publishing» Photo: Astrid Westvang / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
8. We produce new content instead of improving what we already have Photo: Jon S / CC BY 2.0
9. We publish content because it’s really easy to click that button in the CMS Photo: Sean MacEntee / CC BY 2.0
10. We forget to involve the right stakeholders early enough in a website project Photo: Seattle Municipal Archives / CC BY 2.0
11. We love content strategy so much that we forget to work with the actual content Photo: Ranil Amarasuriya / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
12. Challenges • Writing without getting any input from others • Working separately on our own - «silo publishing» • Producing new content instead of improving existing content • Publishing content no one else has looked at • Not involving the right stakeholders early in the process • Only working on the strategy, not the nitty gritty details
13. More collaboration please
14. Pair writing
15. Do your user research
16. ...and establish objectives!
17. Why pair writing? • The team thinks before publishing • It forces authors to stay focused • It helps colleagues form a mutual understanding of their content • It results in a more uniform tone • It allows authors to share best practices in regards to writing for the web
18. Web writing workshop (ca 1948)
19. Pair writing!
20. Inspired by pair programming http://bit.ly/acc-prog (PDF)
21. Pair writing 1. Bring people together and pair them up 2. Decide on a need 3. Group feedback 4. Write! 5. Present a draft 6. Continue writing
22. Step #1: Bring people together and pair them up
23. Before writing, each pair has to answer these questions. • Which objective will this page help us achieve? • What are the user needs? Step #2: Decide on a need
24. Step #3: Group feedback
25. Step #4: Write! – Can you read that out loud? – What do you mean by that?
26. Initial drafts focus on most important need
27. Step #5: Present a draft
28. Step #6: Switch roles and continue writing
29. No cruft, just needs Example from City of Oslo
30. Pair writing 1. Bring people together and pair them up 2. Decide on a need 3. Group feedback 4. Write! 5. Present a draft 6. Continue writing
31. Where does pair writing fit in your process? Let’s look at 4 examples
32. Warning!
33. Example #1 Small-town bank on the windy west coast of Norway
34. Financial jargon Product prices hard to find Dull and lifeless content Takes a long time to get to the point
35. ssf.no 2012 redesign
36. Pair writing at SSF • 2 pair writing workshops • 10-12 people in total • Pairing communications people and product specialists • Finding a common tone of voice • Getting rid of financial jargon • Using Google Docs
37. Straight to the point Clear call to action Prices and rates Try it yourself! Contact the bank for more info
38. 236% increase in mortgage calculator use
39. Increased traffic to all product pages
40. 520% increase in traffic compared to banners on the front page
41. Example #2 Gaining leads for construction projects
42. Add to cart 1 Bridge (18.000 tonnes) Not going to happen...
43. Showcase a project Contact project manager Gain project leads
45. Oslo Hammerfest Paris 1332 km 1342 km
46. Web manager East Web manager East North South West
49. Example #3 Global fertilizer company with 10.000 employees
50. Decentralized publishing practices People speaking different languages 50 different locations worldwide Photo: Alexander Kaiser / CC BY 2.0 More than 60 intranet editors and contributors
51. ...and one (SharePoint) intranet
52. So this is what we did... • 60 people from all over the world in the same room • Half day web writing theory course to get a common understanding of quality content • Two and a half days pair writing workshops in smaller groups
53. + Word SharePoint +
54. 2. Cultural and organizational differences Language barriers People not feeling it was their task to write 3. Word and SharePoint gave us a hard time Use Google Docs instead! Lessons learned 1. We should have had more theory together HR, IT, Communications, Legal, business segments and more Half a day wasn’t enough to get everyone on the same page
55. Example #4 Customer focus at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
56. 5 million pages sounds about right...
57. NTNU’s «web school» 90 participants, 1 semester, 6 gatherings: • Digital strategy • Customer-centric content, usability and user testing • Text, images and video best practices • Social media • Search, search engine optimization and accessibility • Content strategy and pair writing
58. 90 editors gathered in a room
59. What’s our objective? What does the customer need?
60. Takeaways
61. Pair writing helps you write to meet the need
62. Pair writing is outside some people’s comfort zone, but the results are worth it
63. It teaches you to focus on the need first, then the words
64. When you practise pair writing, you can't remember who wrote each sentence. You have shared ownership.
65. Pair writing helps you find common ground
66. Thank you! @audunru audun@netliferesearch.com @bbergslien bjorn@netliferesearch.com Slides and resources: bit.ly/gerry-pw