The most precious resource on any web team is time. Just keeping the show on the road requires so much effort that spare time has to jealously guarded.

That's why it's so important to avoid the black holes of web.

Black holes are issues that mercilessly consume your time and destroy any hope of meaningful progress.

The best example is the website homepage.

Forever circling...

How many endless hours have you spent debating homepage updates? I bet you have sent hundreds of emails and hosted countless video calls defending homepage integrity against nonsensical requests.

Bad news. You've fallen into a black hole.

The truth is that the homepage debate will never finish. The mad requests will never end. You can't escape. You end up circling forever...

It pains me to admit it, but there are some things we just need to give up. Endless homepage defence is one of them.

The effort is simply not worth it.

90% of your visitors never see the homepage

It's our little secret.

As web professionals we know that homepages - although significant - are just not the most important thing about a website.

For most large-scale sites I have worked on, +/-90% of visitors never even see the homepage! That's right. 90%!

These visitors start with a Google (or AI) search that directs them deep into the site. Homepage? What homepage?! It's irrelevant for these folks. 

Instead, the most important things for them are:

• Is content easy to read and understand
• Can they navigate intelligently between pages
• Can they complete important tasks easily

As such, I no longer allow myself or my team to get stuck in 'black hole' discussions. We have so little time for UX and content improvements that we need to target it for best possible return.

The homepage simply isn't a priority.  

Of course, if a business team demands some ill-advised homepage update, I'll definitely push back - but I definitely will *NOT* spend all my time defending it.

So, let business teams endlessly argue among themselves over the homepage. It keeps them off my back.

In the meantime, myself and my team will be getting on with the important stuff that 90% of visitors actually want - content, UX, accessibility, etc.

Labels: Content Design, Content Strategy, UX, Web Governance, Website Management

A challenge in every organisation is helping non-web colleagues get the most from web. Digital literacy tends to be quite low and the skills needed to create successful content are often missing.

(Read about the 8 basic 'forms' of content I use to help colleagues make better decisions.) 

Typical symptoms of this digital shortfall include excessive use of FAQs and PDFs, unoptimised images, difficult to read text, poor accessibility, etc.

As such, I often put particular effort into engaging with non-web colleagues and stakeholders in order to boost digital literacy. I do this my giving them the Tools, Training and Time they need to acquire new web skills.

One system I regularly use is to establish 'Digital Knowledge Sharing' sessions. The purpose is to coach colleagues in standard web production skills, such as image optimisation, PDF optimisation, accessibility, etc.

You can download a selection of some typical coaching slidedecks below. 

Digital Knowledge Sharing 1:
Better PDFs [pdf]

Digital Knowledge Sharing 2:
Better Accessibility [pdf]

Digital Knowledge Sharing 3:
Better Web Images [pdf]

Digital Knowledge Sharing 4:
Better Web QA [pdf]

Digital Knowledge Sharing 5:
AI and plain English [pdf]

Although progress is slow, these sessions are a powerful way to increase the credibility of the web team as a source of expert skills.

Colleagues and stakeholders come to respect the team as a centre of digital competence. This gives the web team a bit of maneuvering space to direct activity better, e.g. for deflecting requests or persuading colleagues to take on our recommendations.

Labels: AI, Content Design, Content Strategy, UX, Web Governance

I see it again and again. Web teams are completely overwhelmed. Volumes are so high that their most important decision is choosing what *not* to do.

In another article I described a practical method web teams can use to decide what to ignore.

But the demands keep on coming.

To help plan things week-to-week and month-to-month I divide activity into 3 broad categories. At a high level these let me estimate what can be delivered with the available people and time.

(I also use a more comprehensive model to communicate the totality of web delivery to senior decision makers.)

The 3 categories are:

1. Business-as-usual (BAU)

BAU encompasses all the normal (usually invisible) operational activity that keeps the show on the road:

• Publishing content
• Expediting QA
• Managing technology
• Curating analytics/reports
• Ensuring compliance
• Managing bugs / issues / firefighting

All else being equal, I know that BAU will consume the most of my team's effort - between 50% to 100% of time week-on-week.

2. Non-discretionary development activity

Non-discretionary development encompasses significant non-BAU things that my team must do for some reason. Some common examples are:

• Unavoidable software projects, e.g. replacement of Google Analytics with GA4.
• Mandatory legal or regulatory requirements, e.g. accessibility enhancements, cookie management, etc.
• Must-do senior management requests, e.g. if the CEO says she wants a new microsite for her favourite campaign and that it must be purple, there's no discussion. You just build the purple microsite.

Not only do non-discretionary tasks consume most of a web team's remaining time (25% to 50% week-on-week), they often land at very short notice.

This means that whatever plans you may have had for discretionary activity (UX, content, etc), gets pushed out and out and out...

3. Discretionary development activity

Discretionary development includes the things you and your team would like to do:

• Improving UX
• Redesigning content
• Enhancing performance
• Etc

I consider it a major win if my team gets to spend 10% of its time (half a day per week) on discretionary activity on a consistent basis. Anything above 20% (a full day a week!) is a fabulous extravagance.

Many people assume that web teams spend most of their time on these discretionary tasks - 'web design', etc. 😣

They're amazed when I tell them it's what a typical web team does least.

Bridging this gap in understanding about the reality of modern digital management is something we need to get much better at.

Labels: Content Design, Content Strategy, UX

Functions, features & formats

For a long time, I have used a framework called the '3Fs' on all web content projects.

The 3Fs are the Functions, Features and Formats of content.

Here's how it works...

Let's say I'm working on a website for a political party. A core function of content is to persuade visitors to vote for their candidates. A series of biographies (features) would be one way to do that. Delivering those biographies as videos (format) would likely work well, especially for social channels.

The 3Fs framework is simple and effective.

It's a great way to help non-expert business teams make good content decisions.

But it's not enough.

I regularly find that teams struggle to produce effective content after a project ends when activity shifts back to business-as-usual.

Without expert guidance, they become overwhelmed by the sheer variety of options available. With little time to choose good features and formats, they end up defaulting to what they know best.

FAQs (a bad feature) and PDFs (a bad format).

Solving this problem has been a goal of mine for some time.

I now think I have an answer.

8 forms of content

Instead of explaining what good content is like, I show them.

I have identified 8 'forms' of content (described below) that non-web business teams can use to assess their options and make better decisions. The 8 forms are:

• Unitary
• Series
• Algorithmic
• Instructive
• Descriptive
• Explanatory
• Discursive
• Narrative

You may notice how each 'form' expands in scope as you go down the list, from narrow and simple (Unitary, Series) to wide and complex (Discursive, Narrative). 

Taken together the 8 forms work a bit like - though not exactly like - design patterns.

Design patterns offer prebuilt solutions for commonly occurring interactions, e.g. password reset, error states, etc. Some organisations also maintain content patterns. For instance, the UK GDS team maintains a content library for various types of pages, e.g. if a service is unavailable.

This approach is useful. But it is also very specific. Too specific to cover every eventuality.

What if the content you need is not on the list? You're out of luck.

That's where the model of content 'forms' comes in.

Using content 'forms' is like activating a beacon

Unlike design patterns, this model doesn't deliver exact solutions. Rather, it helps non-expert business teams to analyse their options and identify the type of content that best matches users' needs.

This makes deciding on the right features and formats much, much easier.

For example, the first form - Unitary - describes instances where publishing a single word, number, photo, document, etc could provide everything the user needs to satisfy an informational intent.

I wonder what time it is in London? 3:30pm.    

In contrast, the Discursive form describes complex circumstances potentially requiring many features and formats (text, images, videos, etc) to satisfy the user.

Off-shore vs on-shore windfarms, I wonder which is better? One the one hand… but, on the other hand.

To formalise this approach, I have added content forms to the existing 3Fs framework.

Yes, that means 3Fs is now 4Fs - but the change is worth it. Without exaggeration this approach has saved me hundreds of hours on content projects.

Analysing content based on 'form' is like activating a beacon. Teams just seem to get it. Confusion recedes and the right answers stand out. Usefully, it can also be connected with aspects of Search Intent ('website', 'know', 'do', 'visit') for even better analysis. 

To see how the model works, let's stress test it against the most complex content challenge of recent years - COVID19 - using some common (though simplified) scenarios.

We'll see how the 8 'forms' make content decisions much, much easier. 

Content Form 1 - Unitary

Scenario: It's mid-2021. Jane wants to know the latest count of new Covid cases.

In this scenario, Jane has a very simple information need. The form of content that matches this need is equally simple. In fact, it's the simplest possible.

All we need to publish is a single number. That's it.

Today's count of new Covid cases is: 12,535.

The temptation here (and across all 8 forms) is to add much, much more content than is actually required. "Welcome to our website! See photos from the mayor's visit to the COVID clinic. Find out about our new energy-saving roof panels." etc. 

Keeping things simple requires real skill.

It is worth noting that some websites are composed almost entirely of content in this basic form, e.g. Open Data websites. Sites like this don't explain what their content is about. They just give links to data because that's all the users really want. Perfect.

(Of course, short descriptions are often useful. However, the examples here are highly simplified.)

Examples of the Unitary form

The next UK bank holiday.

Content Form 2 - Series

Scenario: Jane wants to know if her local COVID vaccine clinic is open today.

Here again, Jane has a very simple information need. And again, the form of content can also be very simple. The right answer is limited to a known series.

In this case, it's binary. The COVID clinic is either open or closed.

So, just give her the right answer and then stop.

Today the clinic is: Open.

Of course, in real life, it sometimes makes sense to add some further information, e.g. if clinic will close early. But that is extra. The important lesson is that the right content can often be very, very, very simple.

Examples of the Series form

Ferry sailings updates. Either the ferry is sailing on-time, delayed or cancelled.

Content Form 3 - Algorithmic

Scenario: Jane wants to know if she is eligible to get vaccinated at the clinic today.

Yet again, the thing to recognise here is that there is only 1 right answer. However, unlike the Unitary or Series cases, content in this form requires a bit more sophistication.

The reason is that the answer, in part, depends on Jane. She needs to check if she meets all the necessary conditions to qualify - and there could be a lot of them.

Most websites use the 'Descriptive' form of content in this case, e.g. long pages of text, reams of FAQs. It's a shame because the Descriptive form is a fantastically awful way to satisfy this type of user need (of which, more below).

The best way to help Jane is to present her a decision model - an algorithm - that can spit out the right answer. A series of straightforward yes/no (or similar interactions) will give her exactly what she needs and create a very high level of confidence in the result.

Check if you are eligible to be vaccinated today.

Enter your age: [ 42 ]
Enter your postcode:  [ ABC123 ]

Answer: Yes, you are eligible to be vaccinated today.

Book your appointment and find out how to prepare for your visit.

Why descriptive content is often the worst way to present information

As stated, very few websites use the Algorithmic form of content in this type of scenario, with most preferring the Descriptive form. The worst thing about this is that it shifts all the effort of figuring out the right answer onto the user.

For instance, using the Descriptive form in this scenario means that Jane has to read absolutely *everything* before she can arrive at a conclusion. Even if she somehow chooses the right answer, she will probably remain uncertain ("perhaps I made a mistake?!")

Organisations that use the Descriptive approach for this type of need typically suffer from huge backlogs of queries from confused customers. They deserve it.

Examples of the Algorithmic form

Citizenship. Check if you satisfy the conditions. Simple yes/no answers.

Content Form 4 - Instructional

Scenario: Jane has booked her appointment and now wants to prepare for her visit.

In this scenario, we have 1 job. We need to give Jane *everything* she needs to know in order to have a successful visit. It's on us.

The very best way to do that is to be explicitly instructional. Don't "describe" the process to Jane. State it directly. If there is a procedure, set it out step-by-step. If there are musts and shoulds, list them.

Tell Jane *exactly* what she needs to do and how to do it.

Step 1. Prepare your documentation
Make sure you have an official form of identity with you before you leave home,. This can include …

Step 2. Sign in at the clinic
When you arrive at the clinic, go to the booth marked "Today's appointments" to sign-in

Step 3. … etc
… etc.

Further discussion

I love the Instructional form of content. Indeed, I spend a lot of time rewriting Descriptive content into this form. It should be used much more widely, especially in government.

It's odd that so many institutions avoid it. It's a shame because Instructional content is much easier to create, much clearer for users and can be delivered in many formats.

Think of the looping videos used at airport security, "First, remove your laptop from its case and place it in a tray. Next, remove your shoes …" These videos don't "describe" the security system, they give you instructions about what you need to do to get through.

Examples of the Instructional form

Replace old or damaged notes and coins. Just follow the steps to exchange your money.

Content Form 5 - Descriptive

Scenario: Before she leaves for her appointment, Janes wants to learn about the vaccine she will receive.

OK, now we are getting into more traditional web content. Content in the Descriptive form is perhaps the most widespread across the internet. And it has its place.

Just not for absolutely *everything*.

As we have seen, this form is widely misused. In many cases users would be far, far better off with simpler forms: Unitary, Series, Algorithmic or Instructional.

Nevertheless, Descriptive content is correct in this scenario. To satisfy Jane's need, all we need to publish is some plain language text on a web page. Job done.

The main skill is knowing where to set the limit in terms of the depth and breadth of content. For example, does Jane really need to know the chemical formulae of the vaccine or the name of its inventor? Probably not.

Comarinty Vaccine (Pfizer)

We use the Comirnaty vaccine in our clinic. Comirnaty is a vaccine for preventing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in people from the age of 6 months.

Examples of the Descriptive form

There are too many, but perhaps the ubiquitous 'About us' page is a good example.

This content has a very simple job - to describe an organisation. It doesn't explain or discuss the organisation. It just describes it.

Content Form 6 - Explanatory

Scenario: Before she leaves for her appointment, Jane wants to know why the Comarinty Vaccine was chosen.

The truth is that Explanatory content is often used in tandem within the Descriptive form. This is because sometimes you need to do more than just describe a concept - you need to explain it (especially if it's a new concept).

Just remember, not *everything* needs an explanation. Also, creating explanatory content can vastly expand your production effort and volumes. The trick is knowing if it's really needed.

For example, if your job is to publish data about homelessness it probably makes sense to describe the data in outline (scope, time period, etc). But, do you really need to explain homelessness? Maybe - but it will require a lot of extra production.

That said, in the previous instance, it would seem natural to include an explanation about why the Comarinty Vaccine was chosen.

We use this vaccine instead of others because it has the highest effectiveness and the fewest side effects ...

Examples of the Explanatory form

AI. Proposals for how and where to use it.

Content Form 7 - Discursive

Scenario: As she is waiting for her appointment to begin, Jane decides to learn more about the pros-and-cons of the national vaccination strategy.

The identifying feature of Discursive content is that it signals a move into editorial and opinion.

Although widespread over the internet, content in this form is relatively rare for public institutions. That is because their job is to deliver information and services as defined (e.g. as set by legislation or government policy), not to speculate on alternatives.

Nevertheless, some Discursive content is seen on institutional blogs or in commentary sections. It is also deployed more freely on social media, where opinion and exchange is expected.

As regards Jane's scenario, it is unlikely the website of her local clinic would include information on the pros-and-cons of various approaches. That is outside their remit. Most likely, she would need to visit a central government website - or simply read online press commentary.

Why we are following a national vaccination strategy

We are following a national vaccination strategy based on the advice of our most senior scientists. Their research has found that a zero-COVID approach would not work well for several reasons ....

Examples of the Discursive form

Blog. Commentary from European Central Bank staff and researchers.

Content Form 8 - Narrative

And lastly we get to the Narrative form. Narrative is generally understood to mean 'storytelling'.

So yes, this form includes press releases, marketing, promotions, proselytising and similar stories.

Examples of the Narrative form

Shell Oil and its climate targets.

Not everything is an 'article'

Those who know me, know my mantra. "Not everything is an 'article' (or an FAQ)." The right answer to every question is not more descriptive text!

That's why the 8 forms of content work so well. They help non-expert business teams to analyse their web options and select better content to satisfy users' needs. 

While each one is useful on its own, you may often use several together.   

Just remember. Simpler forms usually work much, much better and are much, much easier to create.

• Unitary. A single word or number could provide everything the user needs.
• Series. The answer could be just 1 of 2 things. So publish the right one.
• Algorithmic. Don't make the user read *everything*. Give them a system to get the right answer.
• Instructional. Don't "describe" the process. State it explicitly, step-by-step.

The 8 basic forms really work with business teams, but there are probably additional forms. If you have comments on the model, I'm interested to hear them.

Lastly, I hope to add more examples to show the variety of features and formats that are possible for each form. Images, video, documents, audio, interactive.

There are lots of way to deliver good content.

Labels: Content Design, Content Strategy, UX

The demands of web management are constant and overwhelming.

There is waaaaaaay too much to do and, for most web teams, the resource needed to deliver it all is fantastically inadequate. With so little slack in the system, the risk is that something relatively minor will happen (e.g. a staff member goes on sick leave) and things just fall apart.

Failure is 'built in'.

It's time to expose these risks to senior decision makers in a way they can understand. If they're truly serious and sincere about their digital strategy (i.e. it's not just some woolly aspiration), they need to see the gaps so you can get the backup you need.

Here's how I do it.

Online. Operations. Organisation.

I examine the performance of web delivery across 3 categories: Online, Operations and Organisation (more about these below).

I then rate each with a traffic-light score (red, amber, green) to indicate risk, along with actions for improvement. 

That's it.

The best part is that things *always* get better whenever I share this model with senior managers.

The results are so clear and so easily understood, they're hard to ignore. It has proved a great way to tell a simple story about web - and it can all be done on single slide.

Typically I get more resourcing (manpower, budget). Sometimes, I just get more understanding. But even understanding helps as it cuts the torrent of unreasonable demands placed on my team.

The 3 categories encompass all the elements upon which good digital delivery relies. As such, it successfully communicates the totality of your digital position in a meaningful way to non-experts.

Let's see how it works. (Read a more detailed description.)

1. Online

'Online' stands for my website itself.

My basic question is: Does this website meet minimum standards of quality and experience?

To find out, I benchmark the site against common delivery standards, e.g. UX, content, accessibility, performance, law/regulations, etc.

I then score the site (red, amber, green) and identify the issues with the greatest risk.

Aside from legal/regulatory compliance, 9 times out of 10 the biggest issues are always the same. Users can't find, read, understand or take action on the things they want.

That's right. The things that every website should be good at, are the things they are worst at. That is especially so for findability (though AI may soon fix that problem).

2. Operations

'Operations' stands for how my web team does things.

My basic question is: Does this team have the capability - manpower, skills, tools, procedures, etc - to carry out all essential activities needed to deliver a stable and successful web service?

To find out, I examine the scale of the site. I then score operations (red, amber, green) on whether the team has the resources needed for delivery.

If not, I isolate the gaps with the greatest risk and start to fix them.

Some of this is relatively easy, e.g. training the team with new skills.

Other parts are very hard, e.g. persuading senior managers to hire extra manpower.

3. Organisation

'Organisation' stands for the digital literacy of the institution I work for.

My basic question is: Does this organisation have the capacity (e.g. understanding, ambition, etc) to get the most from its investment in web?

The truth is that many organisations have very poor digital literacy (the traffic light flashes 'red'). This is clear in how they talk about web, e.g. 'redesigns!', FAQs, etc.

They're stuck in the 'art project' phase of digital maturity. They simply don't know that they don't know how to deliver web successfully.

They think they do, but they don't.

To promote awareness, I often establish 'digital knowledge sharing' programmes to bring colleagues and senior managers on a journey to a more sophisticated understanding . The aim is to help them get more bang-for-buck from web.

Overall, the strength of this model (the 'O3 model') is its simplicity.

As web professionals we need to get much, much better at communicating risks to digital delivery. This model is a great way to do it.

In my experience it always works. Find out how to use it in practice.

Labels: Content Design, Web Governance, Website Management

The ideal website (the 'platonic' website?) is one with perfect findability. It has no navigation, no search and no sitemap. Users get exactly what they want first time.

That's what AI will do.

Very soon an AI embedded on your site will give users just what they're looking for after a few text or voice prompts. 

I expect AI interfaces to become so good that they will dominate how ordinary people find and engage with your content.

Needle in a haystack? No problem.

Importantly, users are unlikely to treat AI-delivered information in the same way as 'old' search results. They will expect and assume that whatever it provides is correct and that everything they need is included.

For many, this new interface will be your website. No need to trawl through vast, confusing megamenus or landing pages with cryptic links anymore.

That's why AI is going to eat our websites for lunch.

What's the biggest complaint on most websites?

"Why is it so hard to find anything on this f*****g website?!"

Findability. Even after decades of work and endless redesigns! most sites remain crushingly bad at this most basic aspect of delivery.

Sure, we web folk put our heart and souls into UX (usually in extremely straitened circumstances), but at best our solutions are barely tolerated and at worst they're actively hated.

Design doesn't get better - it just gets less bad.

That's why huge information-dense websites (typical in government) could really benefit from AI.

Let's look at an example.

How AI will eat your website

Suppose I wanted to find out how to visit an inmate in Portlaoise prison in Ireland.

I could to go to the Irish Prisons website - www.irishprisons.ie - and look for what I need using navigation or search. (Or perhaps not via search, given its tragically awful results. See below.)

Note: I don't actually need to visit a prison inmate. I chose Irish Prisons as a good example of a common task delivered by an information-dense government website.

Alternatively, I could start my search in Google where it (sometimes) presents rich-results pulled directly from the website. That gives a sense of what's coming with AI.

(Update May 2024: In fact, it has now arrived. Google is now "Supercharging search with generative AI" - and it works pretty much exactly as anticipated above.)

But AI is already doing better.

Recently I set up a trial of Microsoft's ChatGPT-powered Copilot Studio which I pointed at the prisons website and then entered the same query as above. It returns quite detailed information delivered in a clear 'Instructional' form of content, i.e. step by step instructions.

And Google Bard does a similar job.

The AI search engine Perplexity returns similar results, but also includes 'related' items which appear both relevant and useful.

This really starts to show the power of AI for uncovering content and filling in the user journey. Done right, this will make it much easier for users to find what they need.

The shockingly poor state of content design on many government websites means they don't link to all the information a user needs. They pass the burden to the user to figure out what to do next.

"What do you mean you don't understand our internal processes? Try harder!!"  

The result is an incomplete picture - leading to errors, complaints and wasted time for everyone.

The future is content (again)

The trajectory is clear.

AI can both find what users need and serve the content directly to them. An obvious effect is that many users will change their behaviour and may never look at your 'web pages' again.

Web teams will need to pivot to address this change.

UX won't be needed as much time for findability anymore. The emphasis must shift to producing high-quality, semantic content that can be served in a structured and coherent way via multiple channels (web, smart-TV, Alexa, AI chatbot, etc.) 

Of course, it's still early days and AI has lots of issues to overcome. Further, the current chat-dominated interfaces do not work well for people with literacy issues.

Additionally, I expect many existing web findability patterns to remain. They'll always be a need for traditional websites and navigation to support exploratory behaviour.

But jump ahead a few years to ChatGPT 5 or 6. Imagine their capability.

Remember, users don't give a damn about your website

This reminds us that your website is not an end in itself - it's a means to an end.

Yes, people want the information and services that are *on* your website. But the website itself? Forget it.

Your users don't give a damn about your website. Why would they? Most websites are disasters.

If our users can get what they need any other way, we'll never see them again.

AI is just what they're looking for.

Update: 10 October 2024

Another interesting development whereby Google AI can 'eat' your content and create a podcast about it: Listen to an AI postcast about this AI article.

Update: 22 May 2024

The predictions above are now starting to arrive. Google has just announced it will start "Supercharging search with generative AI". Time to start waving goodbye to our web users!

Update: 25 March 2024

Some interesting reading on the extent to which Gen-AI will replace web designs from Nielsen Norman Group: Generative UI and Outcome-Oriented Design.

Labels: AI, Content Design

Core skills for small government web teams (XLS 23KB)

This spreadsheet lists some of the most common skills needed by a small government web team, from QA to Content Design and more.

You might as well admit it.

You will never get all the resources you need for your web team - especially manpower. You'll just have to make do with that you've got.

That means the people on your team need to be able to support a very wide-range of activity - from ordinary day-to-day operations (QA, publishing, analytics, etc) to advanced, high falutin' digital awesomeness (UX, content strategy, etc).

Mom-n-Pop's general store

One way to think of web operations is like a small general store.

To keep a small store running, everyone needs to know how to do just about everything. In addition everyone also needs a deeper expertise in one or two areas for when the need arises.

For example, everyone needs to know how to operate the checkout - but one person must be adept at cash reconciliation and account management.

It's the same on a web team.

'Specialist Generalists' rule!

Small web teams thrive with Specialist Generalists.

Everyone on a small web team needs a good general competence in all core web disciplines (content, design, code, analytics, etc). But everyone also needs specialisms in a few key areas.

For example, everyone should know how to write in plain English, but at least one person must have advanced Content Design skills.

I've worked with web teams for 20+ years and the core skills needed to keep the show on the road are broadly stable. Download a sample list of core skills above or explore a more complete framework in the 'Web Management Masterclass'.

Warning! Don't romanticise small teams

Of course, we shouldn't romanticise the capability of small web teams. They're not "small". They're stunted. The reason is they're in penury.

Most colleagues outside of web teams have no idea what we web folks actually do ("...something about design?!?")

This blind spot is why web teams are critically underfunded. And that is why many websites fail (especially in government), leading to repeated and wasteful "redesigns".

The truth is that it is becoming harder and harder for even the best teams to cope.

Web has become so complex and specialised that we are well past 'peak geek'. No-one person can know it all any more.

Just think of how much more sophisticated GA4 is compared to GA Universal. It is a transformational change that many struggle with - even the specialists.

And it's only beginning.

Photo by Galt Museum and Archives on Unsplash.

Labels: Content Design

Don't get me wrong. The universe is certainly majestic.

Yet even the most simple video game offers a far more fantastical world than we seem to inhabit.

If God was a game designer, he'd be fired.

Why is that? Why is creation so pedestrian?¹

If we assume creation was truly open in the beginning², surely anything could have happened? Literally anything (logically possible). The degrees-of-freedom must have been almost infinite.

And yet we get just 3 spatial dimensions. 1 above flatland. Yawn.

Why not 4 dimensions? Or 10? Or 100?

It seems suspiciously ordinary.

Of course, in one way it does make sense.

We evolved within this arena and - as many philosophers old and new have related³ - natural selection imposes a structure on our senses and sets a limit to what we can experience.

The result is that we have limited degrees-of-freedom in how we can hold⁴ the world.

But the world itself is not so constrained.

Just 3 dimensions? You must be joking!

In the 'Game of Creation' we humans may be eternally confined to the Beginner setting of Level-1 - but if we can master it, we may just get a glimpse of what lies beyond.

(Read my post about 'Where to start with philosophy', including links to useful podcasts, videos and more.)

The footnotes...
1. Of course, creation is amazingly complex. But compared to the possibility space of what may have been, it is stupefyingly straightforward (at least in the naive sense of how we perceive it).
2. A big assumption I agree, but then again why wouldn't it have been open? Why was 3 dimensions the obvious default (excluding the possibilities of curled-up extra dimensions and the holographic model)?
3. From Immanuel Kant to Donald Hoffman to Anil Seth.
4. Shout out to my main man Hilary Lawson (IAI) and 'closure' theory (I'm a fan).

Many senior management teams struggle with web. In fact, they often have no idea what their web teams actually do. As far as they are concerned, things sort-of just "happen".

This is a huge risk. It's one of the main reasons websites fail, especially in government.

Web teams are critically short of the funding they need because senior managers (quite rightly) won't invest in something they don't understand.

As web professionals, we have to take some of the blame for this. All our prissy techno-design-babble has gotten in the way of asking for the basics: manpower, skills, tools and money.

We have to divert conversations with senior managers away from the fun side of web (design! interaction!) - and onto the nuts-and-bolts needed to keep the show on the road.

What web teams do in 5 levels

I now describe what a web team can do based on 5 levels of delivery - from the ultra-basic ("this website is impossible to use, but at least it's legally compliant") to advanced, hi-falutin' digital awesomeness.

These 5 levels are:

1. Compliance: Your web team can ensure the site is compliant with legal and regulatory rules, e.g. GDPR, cookies, accessibility, etc.
2. Business-As-Usual (BAU): Your web team can satisfy basic day-to-day business needs, e.g. publishing press releases, creating images, adding PDFs, etc.
3. Quality Assurance (QA): Your web team can deliver a minimum standard of quality for content/services, e.g. no broken links, no missing metadata, etc.
4. User Experience (UX): Your web team can deliver a good standard of UX for core content/services, e.g. good findability, good content design, etc.
5. Digital Goals: Your web team can successfully deliver on strategic goals, e.g. digital cost savings, etc.

As well as being easy to understand, these 5 levels act as a sort-of menu for senior managers to choose from.

Want your web team to deliver fabulous results for your strategic goals (level 5)? Great!

However, you can't simply jump straight to awesomeness. Web follows a strict ladder-of-progress.

The web ladder-of-progress

In that regard, levels 1-3 (Compliance, BAU, QA) are essentially non-negotiable. They are so fundamental that every web team must be resourced to deliver them.

Happily for senior managers, the level of investment needed is quite low. These activities do not require many specialist skills (though the tasks themselves are often very manual and need plenty of time).

The picture is quite different for levels 4 (UX, Content Design) and 5 (Goals). The step-up here is transformational and the resource needed for delivery is an order of magnitude greater.

That means that if your senior management team tells you to aim for stars, tell them to reach for their cheque books - they're going to have to spend a lot of cash on manpower, skills and tools.

The reason is that great websites do not just "happen". Great web teams make them happen.

Labels: Content Design

Think of a public art project, say, for a new sculpture. Consider how it progresses.

First a tender is advertised and an artist is chosen. After agreeing a brief, the work begins. A year or so later the new art work is announced to the world.

And then what happens? Absolutely nothing.

Web as 'art project'

A red-velvet rope is hung around the sculpture so people can admire it from a respectful distance. Apart from the occasional dusting by a contract cleaner, it never changes. In any case, all the budget has been used up so nothing can change anyway.

(Read my article: Why "have budget ... must spend!" leads to bad websites.)

That's why 'art project' is such a good analogy for many public and government websites.

These websites are not expected to do anything. They are merely aesthetic objects. They are valued primarily for their 'look-and-feel' based on corporate-approved imagery and colours. Little else.

Web as 'machine'

In contrast, consider a machine.

Unlike an art project - which people step away from - people step towards a machine. They need to, so they can use it to do things.

A good machine earns its living. It hums with activity as skilled machinists endlessly tweak, tune and refine it. It even looks nice because the same professionals know how to craft elegant form from function.

That's why most public and government websites cannot be thought of as useful 'machines'.

Even if they work at first, they typically seize-up after a short time because they lack the fulltime specialists needed to keep them going, e.g. user researchers, content designers, UX designers, analytics specialists, developers, etc.

Don't make me tap the sign!

It's very clear that the vast majority of public and government websites (at least in Ireland where I live) are still in the 'art project' phase of digital maturity. They are stuck in endless loops of 'redesign!' in the futile hope that just-one-more will fix all their problems.

Nope. Don't make me tap the sign! It will never happen.

A change of mindset is needed. These organisations have got to understand what a website really is. It's not an art project. It's a machine for doing things.

I think that when the penny finally drops (many years from now), this new approach to web will seem so obvious that they'll wonder why they did it any other way.

(Read my article on Medium.com: Why digital government is failing - and how to fix it.)

Labels: Content Design

The O3 (Ozone) Digital Capacity Model assesses your web team's ability to deliver across 3 levels of activity:

• Online
• Operations
• Organisation

(Read a detailed explanation of categories at the bottom of the page.)

The model works by benchmarking key inputs and outputs, and exposes holes in your capacity and resourcing.

Deploying the model is easy. Simply evaluate delivery against the criteria within each category and then grade the results: Red, Amber or Green. The grades indicates risks in your team's capacity.

I have been using this model for several years and it has been superb for grabbing the attention of senior managers. Not only are the results very clear, but they are easily presentable on a single slide (as illustrated below). This clarity just seems to draw senior managers' interest and compels them to focus on web.

(Find out below why it is called the 'Ozone' or 'O3' model below.)

Why digital capacity matters

The scale of demands placed on many web teams is utterly overwhelming. There is simply too much to do and not enough people, time or funding to do it all. (Read my post 'Why digital government is failing - and how to fix it'.)

Yet outside of digital teams there is little to no awareness of the enormous gulf between expectations and reality. Part of the problem is that we 'digerati' are very bad at making the case for increased manpower and funding.

We are typically so flexible and accommodating that - rather than looking for justified increases in resourcing - we simply find ever more creative ways to make do with what we've got.

Guess what happens? Colleagues keep piling on the work, making a bad situation worse.

The truth is that many web teams are stretched so far and have so little redundancy, that almost any issue could bring things crashing down, e.g. staff illness.

This has to stop.

As professional practitioners we need to get much, much better at communicating shortfalls in capacity and how this puts delivery at risk.

The O3 Model can help.

Why the O3 model works

The O3 (Ozone) Model works because it is a convincing.

The 3 categories (the 3 Os) in the model encompass all the elements upon which good digital delivery relies and grades them in a clear way.

It's main strength is how easily it can communicate the totality of your digital position in a straightforward and meaningful way to non-experts.

There is no need for senior managers to understand anything about code, content, design, UX, analytics, technology, etc, etc. The model's 'traffic light' scoring highlights digital risks so clearly that its findings are hard to ignore.

The 3 levels of the model also reflect a useful cascade of dependence.

That is, to be good at Online you need good Operations and to be good at Operations you need a digitally literate Organisation. Fail in any one of the 3 Os and you will likely fail overall.

That's why the model is so useful. Not only does it expose holes in your current capacity, but it can also predict future risks (if things are not fixed).

How to use the results

The most obvious way to use results from the O3 Model is to create a roadmap for improvement across each of the 3 categories, for example:

• Online: If standards of accessibility, content design or UX are poor, you can begin to plan improvements.
• Operations: If the standards or procedures that support online delivery are out-of-date, you can work with your team to update them.
• Organisation: If web governance or decision-making authority is poorly defined, you can ask senior management to strengthen them.

Inevitably, this all assumes that senior managers will give you the resources you need. In that sense, the best way to use the results is as a business case for web investment.

As noted above, the O3 Model exposes risks so clearly that it gives senior managers nowhere to hide. They have everything they need to make informed decisions about web.

If they accept the model's results but then choose to deflect requests for resourcing, they do so with eyes wide open. If demand continues to grow, quality will decline, risks will increase and ultimately, the site will fail.

Of course, web teams will also continue to go above-and-beyond the call of duty to keep the show on the road - e.g. by prioritising core content and ignoring everything else - but the problem is that many teams are running out of road.

O3 (Ozone) Digital Capacity Model - Detailed Criteria

Online

The category of 'Online' represents your ability to deliver a good website, i.e. the digital property itself. The basic question here is - does our website meet the minimum standards of quality and experience our users expect? Key factors to assess include the following:

• Quality Assurance: Does your site meet minimum accepted standards of quality. This includes typical things like broken links, typos/grammar issues, consistent language (style guide / controlled vocabulary), metadata, image optimisations, etc
• User Experience (UX): Does your site deliver a good experience for users. In particular, do you have good content design, i.e. is content easy to Find, Read, Understand and Action?
• Accessibility: Does you site meet WCAG 2.0 guidelines.
• Functionality: Does your site operate predictably without error
• Performance: Does your site respond with accepted time limits
• Security: Does the side meet standards for Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

Explore a complete list of criteria in the Website Manager's Handbook.

Operations

The category of 'Operations' represents your capability to deliver a successful website. The basic question is - are you carrying out all the essential activities of web management using robust and repeatable processes based on the scale of your site.

Key factors to assess include the following:

• People: Do you have the resources in place to adequately cover all essential tasks to the right level of granularity and detail. In particular do you have
• Manpower: The right number of people (whether full-time, consultants, contractors, part time, support from colleagues)
• Skills: Do your people have the expertise and experience to meet required standards
• Teams: Are people organised such that everyone knows what they need to focus on, with well defined roles an responsibilities
• Processes: Do you have documented procedures and standards that allow delivery to happening consistent and reliable way - and also be repeatable and auditable. Can you do it whilst maintaining good relationships with your internal stakeholders
• Tools: Does your team have access to the right tools and other supports needed to do their jobs. This includes everything from CMS, to graphic editing tools to IDEs to style guide and design patterns. Basically, anything your people need to deliver.

Organisation

The category of 'Organisation' stands for the capacity of your organisation to support digital development. The basic question is - is your organisation 'digitally literate' enough to get the most from its web investment?

In my Web Masterclass, I have written that the detachment of senior managers from web is one of the biggest risks to successful delivery.

Many senior decision makers have little awareness of the effort needed to maintain a sophisticated, modern website. Yet, they consistently demand the highest of standards and are often amazed when their expectations cannot be met.

This mismatch places huge pressure on web teams. The only thing that often keeps the show on the road is the flexibility and adaptability of staff.

The Ozone Model helps expose this incoherence and brings senior managers closer to web.

Some key factors to consider are:

• Digital strategy: Do you have one? How clear is it? Is it achievable or just a set of vague aspirations?
• Governance: Do you have robust and informed systems to support decision making, e.g. which goals to focus on, how this impacts resourcing?
• Authority: Do you have the authority needed to direct web without undue interference - especially in UX and design decisions (to help circumvent the endless time wasted debating homepages).
• Funding: Do you have access to the minimum funds necessary to deliver on your strategy?

Why "Ozone"?

The model assesses digital delivery and capacity across 3 interrelated categories, each of which happens to begin with the letter 'O'- Online, Operations, Organisation. Thus we get 3 Os.

It also happens that O3 is the chemical symbol for Ozone - a substance known to have developed several unfortunate holes over the years.

Putting it all together, the name seemed to suggest itself.

This model developed from a framework I created about a decade ago. See my article 'How to weaponise your web governance' for more.

Labels: Content Design

What does 'the State' mean to you?

In Ireland (where I live), it's not one thing but many.

'The State' refers to our institutions of officialdom - courts, ministries, agencies, etc.

It's also the area of Ireland's geographic jurisdiction - our dry land.

Lastly it describes a sort-of spirit of Ireland-ish-ness. An administratively sanctioned Kathleen Ni Houlihan if you will.

'The State' is used with such frequency in governmental communications here that I never thought much about its multiple meanings - until I had to.

Find, Read, Understand and Action

I'm a web guy. My job is making digital information and services easier to Find, Read, Understand and Action. I'm good at it.

From 2016-2018 I worked on a content design project for the Irish Immigration Service. We had a lot of success. Rewriting complex procedures in Plain English was at the heart of it.

It was there that the opaqueness of 'the State' and its varying semantics became clear to me.

(Learn more about this project in 'Effective content for better government' on Slideshare.)

"Apply to the State for permission to study in the State"*

This sentence makes complete sense in official-speak. 

But using one word with several meanings in a context like this just confuses normal people - especially immigrants who may not speak English as a first language.

With a little work we can clarify the difference between 'the State' as an institutional entity and 'the State' as a geographic area and reduce the cognitive burden on service users. 

How about...

"Apply to the government for permission to study in the State"?

Or maybe...

"Apply to the State for permission to study in this country"?

That's a start. But we can go further...

"Apply to the government for permission to study in Ireland"?

Even better. But again we can do even more.

Let's make some assumptions about users who visit an official immigration website for Ireland:

• They know who we are (an official agency)
• They what we offer (official immgration services)
• They know what country we are from (Ireland!)

So maybe something very simple will work.

"Apply to us for permission to study here."

'The State' has been overthrown! As least terminologically.

To create government services in plain English, this needs to happen wholesale across the civil service ... and perhaps it is.

Terminological putsch!

During the last census, the 'State' was replaced with 'country' in most information campaigns.

That's progress.

More recently, you may have heard the public service announcements on the radio: "With the ongoing war in Ukraine, the government has put in place measures to help with the increased cost of living ..."

The government?! 'The State' is out. Government is in!

And yet, I don't think this anachronism will entirely disappear. It's too popular.

I mean, it feels good to say or write 'the State'. It has weight to it.

"Sit up straight, you're dealing with the State dammit!"

It lends officialdom to officiousness.

It also suggests 'the State' has agency. It has rights and interests. It does things. Not the government, not civil servants or people.

So when mistakes happen ... well, 'the State' is to blame. Which means no-one is to blame.

Except perhaps Kathleen Ni Houlihan.

*OK, this precise sentence did not occur, but many came damn close.

Labels: Content Design

GA4 will be a 'Great Filter' for web.

It requires a level of expertise that many institutions simply don't have. Come July, they will crash and burn.

The best thing they can probably do is to switch to a much simpler analytics tool. Statcounter, Matomo et al - this could be your moment!

Let's be honest with ourselves.

Most institutions never used data from Google Analytics in a meaningful way anyhow. Beyond some (often misleading) page view stats, the vast power of GA Universal was never tapped.

So why bother with GA4? It's a huge and unnecessary operational burden.

Simpler will be better.

Yes, there will be denial, tears and gnashing-of-teeth but the writing has been on the wall a long time.

Web teams are in penury.

Without massive investment in skills and manpower, the expansive expectations of senior stakeholders just can't be met.

For many, the looming failure of GA4 is just a symptom of this.

Most government websites are not built for communications.

Seems weird doesn't it? I mean many such websites are actually owned by Communications Departments, so of course they are about communications!

Nope.

I have created many government sites (local, regional, national). Much of the content they contain is of little or no interest to their communications teams.

Manuals for information and services

You see, good government websites are manuals for citizens who want to do things.

It’s no criticism to say that communications teams are just not interested in manuals. They're interested in reputation management, image management, launches, interviews, events, campaigns, etc.

The findability of the 'pothole reporting service' simply does not align with their primary concerns.

Apart from 'About Us' pages or 'Director Bios', communications teams are typically very detached from the content and services on the websites they manage. On the rare occasions when their interests do align, it is for very specific reasons, e.g. Brexit, COVID. When those issues pass, things go back to normal.

That's why it's so important for those who manage web to make a point of getting close to - and spending time with - the business owners who produce the content that users actually want.

It may not be sexy but I promise you it's what your website is actually for.

I referred to other aspects of the misalignment between web and communications in a previous blog post “Why web teams don't care about web traffic”.

A new home for web?

So where does web belong? There are no easy answers.

It started out in IT, because technology was so important back then. Over time it migrated to Marketing/Communications as tech was commodified and the justifiable need for better online image/message management emerged.

But web has not stood still.

It is much, much more than a communications channel - it is a service channel. In fact, most of web is about service delivery ('what do you need?'), not communications ('look at what we are doing!'). 

By way of example, the core skills of web (interaction design, content design, accessibility, etc.) are skills for creating and managing digital products and services - not for managing communications.

Yet many large organisations don't know that they don't know how to manage a modern website - partly because they won't hire the people who could tell them. 

That's one reason why so many websites continue to fail.

These institutions continue to manage web as if it was for communications, when in fact the overwhelming majority of user engagement is for content and services the communications team knows absolutely nothing about (and doesn't have any interest in either).

Organisations that have successfully tackled this issue have converged on a model that establishes a 'digital support service' at a corporate level. Under this model, relevant services and skills are managed centrally and made available to all business units as needed, including communications.  

(Image credit: 'Boring' Chris Murphy on Flickr.)

It's a common misunderstanding. Web managers often have trouble explaining it to colleagues.

You see, we (mostly) don't care about traffic.*

That's for Marketing or Communications teams to worry about.

Our focus is delivery.

Delivery über alles!

A web team's number 1 responsibility is maintaining a stable online presence.

We do this by ensuring the site meets minimum standards (UX, content, loading, accessibility, etc) and is supported by effective operations (publishing, QA, analytics, etc).

Think of us like the production team in a TV studio.

We do everything we can to make sure things go smoothly - the cameras are in place, the lighting is on, the scenery is up, the scripts are proofed, the teleprompter is loaded.

Yet, we mostly don't care if anyone is watching.

That's not our concern - our job is delivery.

Business-as-usual is enough

Modern websites are so large and complex, that simply keeping the show-on-the-road is a huge undertaking.

Any sensible web team will have its own strategy to steer activity. For example:

• UX: Improve the readability standard for the top 5 content topics to grade 6 by end of year.
• Resourcing: Hire x2 full-time content designers by mid-year.

This web strategy is agnostic on marketing or communications priorities. It is only concerned with optimising delivery for users and the business.

Confusion about web strategy

Did you know many websites (far, far more that you might think) operate in the complete absence of marketing or communications goals?

It's true.

They may have vague aspirations about being "world class", but they are totally silent on actions, resources or outcomes.

Annoyingly, web teams are often asked to fill-in and to produce goals/targets for sites like this. That exposes the confusion about web strategy.

Goals for what? Targets for what?

At its core, web strategy is about delivery.

"But what about traffic, reach and engagement? What about communications, marketing and business goals?"

Sure, they are also important and they can be included in the strategy. But first someone needs to decide what they are - and that is not the web team's job (or at least not their job alone).*

* In practice, web teams are usually highly involved in developing communications goals for web and are very interested in traffic. But that is only because web is such a dominant channel. No-one expects the print department to set marketing goals - they focus only on high quality printing.

You might know the story. 

You are introduced to someone at a party. They are very engaging, seem amazingly successful and drive an immaculate car.

Only later do you discover that they sleep in that car and the tank is usually empty.

The car looks great because it's all they have - and they work very hard to keep up appearances.

It's a wretched state to be in.

In a strange parallel, the situation for many web teams is the same.

You probably agree that most government and institutional websites look great. They have slick designs, beautiful images and gorgeous, florid "about us" text.

At first glance they seem amazing!

Only later do you discover that's all they have. There is nothing else. It's almost impossible to do anything useful with them.

Their web teams are in penury. There is no budget for any meaningful development.

The tank is empty.

Learn more about why digital government in Ireland is failing - and how to fix it.