Download - Wright de ann-more than words
More Than Words Importance of messaging hierarchy and tone of voice
DeAnn Wright
Lead Content Strategist, eBay
What’s included in a Content Strategy?
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Content
Strategy
Technology
• What are the business objectives?
• What do the users need and want to do?
• What does the brand stand for?• How does the content align with business
and user goals?
• How will users interact with it?
• How will it be structured?• What will it look like?
• How will be build it?
• Who will maintain the technology?
• What do we want to say?• Where will we get the content?
• Who will maintain the content?
* From Karen McGrane, Bond art + science:
http://www.slideshare.net/KMcGrane/why-ux-design-needs-content-
strategy
Defining Hierarchy
Information hierarchy is used to:
• Communicate messages
• Illuminate actions
• Organize information
• Present data
Why is hierarchy important?
• Enable usability
• Reflect priority
What is a messaging hierarchy?
• The positioning of messages in a way that creates an intuitive understanding of message importance for the reader.
• An effective messaging hierarchy needs to map to prioritized user and business needs
• A messaging hierarchy enables you to focus
your content on the things that matter.
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Elements of a messaging hierarchy
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A good messaging hierarchy helps you create content that:
• Guides users through a sequence
• Suggests distinct choices
• Quickly communicates:
• What is this? Usefulness
• How do I use it? Usability
• Why should I care? Desirability
• Answers key questions:
• Where am I?
• What do I do now?
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Having a well-thought-out messaging hierarchy helps you decide
what content is needed, craft it,
and defend it!
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Creating a messaging hierarchy in
three easy steps:
1. List out required actions and messages
2. Prioritize the list
3. Map messages and visual elements to
the page
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Creating and prioritizing messages
User research
• What are the user goals and needs?
Overall content strategy
• What are your guiding principles and strategies?
• What does the content need to communicate?
Competitive analysis
• What are our competitors offering?
Content inventory and analysis
• What content do we already have?
• How do users find and use our existing content?
• What keywords are they using?
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Consider your content principles and
strategies when creating a messaging
hierarchy
List and prioritize messages: Examples
eBay Bucks Messages
Primary:
It’s free
It’s easy
It has real value
We are glad you’re here and that you chose eBay
Understand how the program works
Secondary:
You don’t need to do anything other than sign up
We are not like other rewards programs you’ve
experienced (and forgotten)
We want you to win.
Understand the percentage of earn
Understand that some products are not eligible
Understand that eBay is paying for and providing this
benefit
Understand that eBay will do all the heavy lifting
Understand that it is different from other rewards
programs
We won’t spam you
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Messaging Hierarchy is NOT Content!
• Your list and hierarchy should consist of messages not content.
• Don’t spend time wordsmithing content and getting the phrasing just right. That happens later.
• Just focus on the high-level messages, NOT the actual content.
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Myth #1: Place messages in order of importance
Myth #1: Place messages in order of importance
What are the top 3 messages to communicate in this list?
Myth #1: Place messages in order of importance
Now, where does your eye actuallygo on the list?
The Truth: The most important points should go at the
top and the bottom of a list.
(The middle of a list gets overlooked)
Myth #2: Just make the important stuff bold.
Myth #2: Just make the important stuff bold.
What messages are bold here?
Myth #2: Just make the important stuff bold.
And where does your eye actuallygo?
The Truth: Place important messages near an imageand less important messages elsewhere.(Work with where the eye naturally goes)
So. . .
• Use images & icons near messages you want to communicate most
• Expect people not to read the middle points in your list (or keep them to 3s)
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OK, I have my list of prioritized messages.
Now what do I do with them?
1- Map messages
• Map the primary, secondary, tertiary messages to the page.
(Sketching is a great way to do this)
• Work with design to ensure that messages and visuals work well
together.
• Refine key messages (based on user research, team reviews,
etc)
2- Finalize terminology
• Create and finalize key terms, and document them (glossary)
3- Write copy
• Craft content to support your messaging hierarchy
Mapping messages
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Think about visual elements
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Examples
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Not enough
hierarchy
Examples
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Central message and clear hierarchy
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No clear
hierarchy
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No clear
hierarchy
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Prioritizing content and labeling
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Time to wrap up and
review what we’ve learned so far. . .
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List and prioritize
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eBay Bucks Messages
Primary:
It’s free
It’s easy
It has real value
We are glad you’re here and that you chose eBay
Understand how the program works
Secondary:
You don’t need to do anything other than sign up
We are not like other rewards programs you’ve experienced (and forgotten)
We want you to win.
Understand the percentage of earn
Understand that some products are not eligible
Understand that eBay is paying for and providing this benefit
Understand that eBay will do all the heavy lifting
Understand that it is different from other rewards programs
We won’t spam you
Step 1: Define and prioritize messages with stakeholders
(Remember, messages are not final user-facing content, but high-level
messages)
Map messages
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Step 2: Map messages to page
Add visual elements
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Step 3: Sketch with visual ideas for more specific message mapping
Place in framework
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Step 4: Work with interaction designer to place high-level messages and
preliminary labels into framework
Add final content and visuals
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Step 5: Create final content and visuals that adhere to, and enhance, your
messaging hierarchy
Map messages to a framework
1. Selling is easy and you can make money
2. You can list anything 3. Get inspired by others and
what’s selling on eBay 4. eBay is a great place to sell
stuff5. You can list anywhere6. We’ve got you covered. We’re
here to help. We’ll guide you through it
Add content and visuals
FAQs
I want to have an effective messaging hierarchy, but every stakeholder wants their content or feature to be prominently displayed. What should I do?
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• Separate the discussion about hierarchy from the actual design and content.
• Create a list of potential messages and actions on the page and work with stakeholders to prioritize it.
• Include any data you have about usage or importance of the items on the list.
• If a stakeholder complains about the prominence of their message/visuals, offer to revisit the priority list with all stakeholders (those that have agreed to the prioritization).
FAQs
Most of my work involves small incremental improvement
and not a full redesign. How can I incrementally develop an
effective messaging hierarchy?
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When adding a message element to an existing page consider how it relates to the whole.
• Is it more or less important that the other messages on the page?
• Is it very similar or very different from other messages on the page?
• Does it logically fit within specific content or actions?
• How does it relate to the overall goals and vision for the page?
Document these relationships to begin building a messaging hierarchy.
Apply that messaging hierarchy each time you make incremental changes.
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What
Why
How
Where
When
Who
topics are we going to cover?
formats are we going to use? (newsletters, brochures, videos, online pages, blogs
etc.)
does anyone care?
does this provide business value?
are we delivering the message?
should we say it? (tone of voice)
will we get the content?
can we syndicate the content? (feeds, social media, re-use in other channels)
will this be published?
will it need to be updated?
is responsible for the content?
will maintain it over time?
* From Karen McGrane, Bond art + science: http://www.slideshare.net/KMcGrane/how-to-do-content-strategy
Voice and tone
Who are we? What do we want to be known for?
Since consumers can shop from a variety of brands, we need to be relevant but also differentiated.
Our brand strategy is based on key areas of focus: eBay’s emerging strategy, the changing shopping landscape, and our customers.
Our new brand positioning was based on a deep understanding of the emerging needs of general shoppers, but with a focus on the shopping enthusiast.
Who is ?
Our brand personality attributes
Fun
Friendly
Human
Inspiring
Authentic
Passionate
Smart
Trustworthy
Our research also helped us understand how our brand’s personality is perceived by consumers, and how this compares to other brands
• Visual- What does it look like?
• Audio- How does it sound?
• Touch- How does it feel?
• Smell- How does it smell?
• Taste- How does it taste?
Sensory Branding
“A brand has to transform itself into a sensory
experience that goes far beyond what we see. The
way a brand sounds should never be
underestimated. It can often be the deciding factor
in a consumer’s choice. ” -Martin Lindstrom, Brand Sense
What is fun?
What is friendly?
What is human?
• Start with customer feedback. How do customers perceive our brand?
• We conducted voice and tone focus groups in the UK, NYC, and San Francisco
Lots of questions, here’s another one:Where to begin?
What our customers told usCustomer segment Preferred tone
US buyers Consistent, everyday, natural languageDon’t want to be told what to do – prefer friendly guidance
UK buyers Wary of “generic politeness” as it comes across as insincerityeBay should apologize only when necessary
US casual sellers Positive, polite and active voiceBenefits led – but not “wacky”
US business sellers Prefer conversational, natural languageStay away from corporate speak
UK casual sellers Professional, but not corporate speakEveryday language
UK business sellers Dislike waffleWant direct, to-the-point language
We held “brand design dialogues” with designers and content strategists to tease apart what these words mean for eBay.
In these sessions, we created:
Word affinity maps
Experience captures
Mood boards
Next step, gain internal perspectives
Fun experiences
Fun mood board
Friendly experiences
Friendly mood board
Human experiences
Human mood board
Then, we created content examples
Fun
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Friendly
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Inspiring
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Fun
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NOT so Smart
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I clicked on a
“live help”
link to get
here. So why
is the button
at the bottom
of the page
under the
header “Need
more help?”
This is only
superficially
friendly.
Does it look
like eBay
wants me to
call? Or is this
just lip
service?
Let’s see some examples!FUN is FUN is NOT
That page is not available, but Doug is.
Page not found, and an engineer just lost his wings.
Error 404: Page not found
FRIENDLY is FRIENDLY is NOT
Here’s how it works. Don’t worry—we’ll guide you every
step of the way.
You shouldn’t have bought an item from a seller with less
than 100 feedback. You can only return an item if the seller
lets you.
HUMAN is HUMAN is NOT
Rats! We can’t find that page. In the meantime, here are
some links that might help.
eBay is proud to announce a new product feature for
sellers. eBay Selling 2.0 is designed to be the greatest selling
tool of all time.
SMART is SMART is NOT
Getting a refund is a simple. Here’s what you need to do:
1- Ship item to seller with our easy return label
2- Get money in your PayPal account
Are you sure you want to return this item?
INSPIRING is INSPIRING is NOT
Want to know what’s hot for spring 2013? Let our style
director point you to the trends that everyone will be
wearing this season.
We have millions of items from millions of sellers, a million
different rewards programs, and a million different ways to
buy. All just for you.
It’s all about context!
How to make this global? Will we have US, UK, and DE guidelines or sections?
Creation of guidelines
What will this be? • A pdf? Some sort of online tool? • Integrated with a CMS? Acrolinx?
Rollout, evangelize, and adopt!
Thank you!