The article Request For Proposal: Discovery recommended a way to identify your user profile(s).
Resources
Resources
A template with explanations for creating buyer or audience personas from Content Marketing Institute.
Prototyping is a quick way to incorporate direct feedback from real users into a design. Paper-based prototyping bypasses the time and effort required to create a working, coded user interface.
A detailed article from Smashing Magazine on a five-step user research process, including defining objectives, defining a hypotheses, identifying methods, actually conducting the research, and synthesizing the results
A visual diagram from Richard Ingram showing three main content management roles and their areas of responsibility.
Brief article from a consulting firm outlining how to gather business requirements for a content strategy project.
Card sorting helps you to understand how your users think you should organize your content. From this information you can create a site structure that enables your users to find what they are looking for.
An in-depth article from Boxes and Arrows on how to conduct a card sort activity to help define the structure of a site or product.
A detailed article from UX Booth identifying a five-step process for design research, including planning, observing, designing, prototyping, and testing.
This short article and template from Kendall Copywriting goes over the basics of creating page tables for content strategy.
The University of Minnesota Library's webpage on copyright issues, including the fair use evaluation tool.
Libraries staff experts consult throughout the University and provide training on topics related to copyright and intellectual property in research, teaching, publishing, and other creative contexts.
A short article and checklist from Content Marketing Institute for confirming your content is useful and valuable to your audience.
A short article from Content Strategy 101 defining some commonly used content management roles and associated responsibilities.
Focus groups help you generate ideas by listening to your current and prospective users discuss their experiences and expectations with one another. Focus groups can provide:
Focus groups provide rich and detailed information about feelings, thoughts and underlying emotional motivation from people in their own words. In short, focus groups focus on attitude and affect.
A detailed article defining the process of Content Governance, and how to implement this strategy in your workplace.
You might wonder, “Does our product meet the standards of what makes something usable?” Heuristic Evaluations allow your team to examine your product against a set of recognized usability principles.
Meet With a User Experience AnalystIf you are interested in learning more about how to include user-experience in your curriculum or research, please contact us and we’ll find a time to meet.
Purchasing TeamsYou’re purchasing something that needs to be easy for the whole University community to use. We can:
Personas help you get out of your own head when you are writing content and designing your product. Personas are:
Personas are fictional characters based on actual observed behaviors of real users that a UX professional experiences in the field, talking one-on-one with users.
A guide for creating personas.
While usability testing is an established service at the University of Minnesota, there are additional
Use this RACI chart template for your project
Rapid prototyping is a helpful approach when you want feedback on an early design. At this stage, the design can be on paper or screen.
A comprehensive Federally-run website about Section 508 - the Federal law that requires Federal agencies to make sure their electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities.
A definition of what "soft launch" entails.
Task-based Usability Evaluations are useful when your design is getting close to being fully functional but you still have some ability to change the interface or content.
In academia, we’re notorious for using older, “fancy”, ten-dollar words, when plain language would be clearer and more effective.
Tree testing helps you to learn if your proposed site structure is going to make sense to your users, before you start designing your interface.
Provides information on US Copyright Laws.
Summary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998.
Headings communicate the organization of page content to everyone. Appropriate headings improve accessibility because web browsers, plug-ins, and assistive technologies can use them to provide in-page navigation.
Examples of simple, precise words and phrases you might substitute in your writing
Your content is the most important part of your site.
Part of a research-based guide that covers writing actionable content