A presentation at An Event Apart Boston in in Boston, MA, USA by Jeffrey Zeldman
Beyond Engagement THE CONTENT PERFORMANCE QUOTIENT
Beyond Engagement THE CONTENT PERFORMANCE QUOTIENT Jeffrey Zeldman
Engagement The #1 Stakeholder Request
Engagement Should it be?
If a customer spends 30 minutes on our site, was she engaged…or frustrated?
Speed of usefulness.
Content Performance Quotient
Content Performance Quotient (Design CPQ)
Content Performance Quotient (Design CPQ)
Content Performance Quotient (Design CPQ)
A measurement How quickly can you get the right content to your customer?
A measurement How quickly can you solve the customer’s problem ?
A measurement The shortest distance between problem & solution
A measurement Your value to the customer.
A measurement A new goal to iterate against. A new way to deliver value. A new way to evaluate succes s.
CPQ The time it takes your customer to get the information she came for.
CPQ T he time it takes to for a specific customer to find, receive, and absorb your most important content.
Pre ! y Garbage Garbage in a delightfully responsive grid is still garbage.
Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country.
Come to Marlboro Country.
Slash your architecture.
Slash your architecture. Shrink your content. ☛
Ask: “why do we need this?”
Ask: “why do we need this?” Compare to your goals. ☛
Every design is intentional.
If your design isn’t going somewher e, it’s going nowhere.
How did we get here?
Meetings over meaning.
Behold our mighty CMS.
It’s easy to give everybody what they want.
It’s harder to do the right thing.
Harder for us, but be ! er for the customer & bo ! om line.
The web pages that time forgot.
STOP designing 2001 sites for a 2018 web
STOP designing 2001 sites for a 2018 web
When you strip down the game to its core, everything you learn is a universal principle. –Erik Kennedy “The King vs. Pawn Game of UI Design”
• Atomic design • Focus relentlessly on the individual interaction.
• We do it for shopping carts. • We can do it for content.
FAQ problems • Duplicate and contradictory information
• Lack of discernible content order • Repetitive grammatical structure • Increased cognitive load • Too much content
“Users come to any type of content with a particular purpose in mind, ranging from highly specific (task completion) to general learning (increased knowledge). ” –Lisa Wright, “No More FAQs: Create Purposeful Information for a More Effective User Experience”
“Users come to any type of content with a particular purpose in mind, ranging from highly specific (task completion) to general learning (increased knowledge). ” –Lisa Wright, “No More FAQs: Create Purposeful Information for a More Effective User Experience”
“Users come to any type of content with a particular purpose in mind, ranging from highly specific (task completion) to general learning (increased knowledge). ” –Lisa Wright, “No More FAQs: Create Purposeful Information for a More Effective User Experience”
Waterfall Massive content inventory. (Not recommended.)
Agile/Scrum Constantly iterate on content. (Best bet: in-house.)
Redesign Opportunity to start fresh. (Best bet: outside team.)
Content Performance Quotient (Design CPQ)
Speed of usefulness.
How quickly can we solve our customer’s problem and advance our organization’s goals?
Purpose-driven design & content
Design that is faster for people
who are trying to get things done
Design that is slower for people
who are trying to comprehend
“Scannability.”
Good for transactions, bad for thoughtful content.
Our news designs must SLOW DOWN the reader.
Bigger type, be ! er typographic hierarchy, more whitespace.
Doin’ it right! The Washington Post The New York Times ProPublica Slate Smashing Magazine Vo x
Doin’ it right! Readability Medium A List Apart
Which sites should be FAST? Which should be SLOW?
If the content is delivered for the good
of the general public, the presentation must facilitate slow, careful reading.
If it’s designed to promote our business or
help a customer get an answer to her question,
it must be designed for speed of relevancy.
@zeldman @designCPQ
Our products are tasked with providing ever-higher levels of “engagement.” But should they be? For many sites, analytics demonstrating high levels of “engagement” may actually be signs of failure. AEA co-founder and longtime web designer Zeldman introduces a new measurement of design success: the content performance quotient. Learn how relentlessly cutting needless content and architecture, fine-tuning UX and UI, and shoring up technical performance can create improved experiences that are better attuned to today’s web… and how to sell this profound change in design thinking to your bosses, clients, and colleagues.
The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.
for free. You
can too.