In fact, it’s just shy of eight months since I charted the number of delicious bookmarks tagged with ‘content strategy’ and found that there’d been a significant increase in bookmarking between the back end of 2008 and the first half of of 2009.

The data available to me at the time only went up as far as June, but we now have an additional seven month’s worth that takes us up to February of this year. Well, if that’s not an excuse to plot some more points on the graph then I don’t know what is.

So, what can we try and deduce from this data? Is it pointing to an increasing level of awareness of content strategy and its wider benefits? Unquestionably. Could this be the direct result of the community and its most vocal evangelists helping to bang the drum by openly sharing their knowledge and experience? Almost certainly. Is 2010 the year it goes mainstream? It looks that way.

Best give it a year eight months before I revisit the data again.

We’re all trying to reach out to our ideal customers or clients. We want them to be aware of what we’re offering, selling, or doing, and we want to demonstrate to them why they should choose us over our market competitors.

The social web platforms offer us such a chance. We can engage directly and regularly with new and existing customers or clients, to put them first in the queue for special offers or new products, and to make it easy for them to share our content with their friends.

But rather than let the first question be a case of choosing whether to launch a Facebook group, start a company blog, or register on Twitter, it should be to ask just how much time, resources, and budget we’re willing to commit – now and in the long term.

Like any web content we publish it shouldn’t be taken lightly and needs to be backed up by a strategy where all the pros and cons have been carefully considered. That way we’ll give ourselves the best chance of engaging our audience – no matter where they choose to congregate.

Credit

• Social network icons by Rogie King

You may have Old Father Time perched in the corner pointing at his hourglass, your budget might be drying up faster than you can say ‘right, where’s the kettle?’, or you may even find yourself having to swim against wave after wave of apathy, resignation, or downright stubbornness (hopefully not all three, otherwise it’d be best to take flight to the nearest set of hills).

Is there a quicker (and whisper it softly: cheaper) way to reveal those weaknesses and gaps, discover those pressure points, and still make some considered recommendations as to the ideal path ahead? I believe that, through a combination of small-scale auditing, testing, and interviewing, you can go some way to achieving just that.

• Conducting a quick and dirty audit will help to reveal some of the clearest patterns and relationships that exist between the content assets and with it the obvious holes that’ll need attention.
• Testing choice samples of the existing content with a handful of live audience representatives will allow you to measure its impact and effectiveness.
• Interviewing only the key content handlers will enable you to learn more about how the content is published and maintained, as well as who’s responsible for the vital tasks of reviewing, approving, and removing.

Even though what you’ll produce may not be anything close to a full-scale analysis of the existing content, nor will it necessarily reveal a complete representation of the existing workflow patterns and publishing processes, you’ll at least have a much better grasp of your web content and, with it, the confidence to decide on the direction you’ll need to take.

As a small child at infant school (aged around 4/5) I once painted a picture of a tree. It gained some attention. Not because its mature brush strokes and grasp of perspective belied my tender years (it really hadn’t) but because I’d managed to get my colours in a hideous muddle. Now, get a mental picture of your archetypal tree. I’m thinking a rich brown trunk and branches with fresh green leaves and maybe a few cherry red apples thrown in for good measure. Close enough? Well, rather than displaying an early attempt at artistic arrogance I’d simply painted the colours I thought I saw: green for its trunk and brown for the leaves.

Fast forward 7 or so years and you’d find me squinting at a book containing a series of single circles made up of various sizes of coloured dots – I was taking the Ishihara colour test (Figure 1). Asked if I could clearly see a number embedded in each of the circles I confidently read out the first few, but they quickly became more difficult to decipher until I had to admit defeat. After that I was told I was colour blind. ‘Thanks, do I get a sticker?’

Figure 1 - Ishihara colour test plates - can you see all the numbers? Answers below (via Wikipedia).

Colour blindness: what is it and what causes it?

Genetically inherited – or acquired through illness, accident or poisoning – colour blindness is a condition affecting approximately 8% of men and 1% of women in developed nations. The absence or altered sensitivity of one of the three cone receptors at the back of your eyes causes the individual difficulty in distinguishing certain colours from one another. While not a disability, the condition can at times be frustrating. I’m sure anyone with a form of colour blindness has fielded many a ‘what colour does this pencil look to you?’ question ad nauseam.

Blindness is perhaps a misleading description as it wrongly suggests that an individual is blind to colour – or sees things only in black and white. To say they have a colour vision deficiency seems a more apt description of the condition, so I’ll proceed with that.

What are the most common forms of the condition?

Green weakness

• Deuteranopia [doo-ter-uh-noh-pee-uh] is the absence of green sensitivity, causing confusion between red, green, blue, and purple (Figure 2). It only affects approximately 1% of males.
• Deuteranomaly [doo-ter-uh-nom-uh-lee] is a green sensitivity and the most common form of colour deficiency, affecting approximately 6% of males and 0.4% of females. Under certain lighting conditions those affected can mistake darker greens for black.

How might someone with a green weakness see an image?

Figure 2 - A representation of Deuteranopic vision (generated with Vischeck tool)

Red weakness

• Protanopia [proht-n-oh-pee-uh] is the absence of red sensitivity, resulting in confusion between red, green, brown, and some purple hues (Figure 3). It only affects approximately 1% of males.
• Protanomaly [proht-n-om-uh-lee] is a red sensitivity. Those affected will see darker reds to the extent where they can be mistaken for black. It only affects approximately 1% of males and 0.01% of females.

How might someone with a red weakness see an image?

Figure 3 - A representation of Protanopic vision (generated with Vischeck tool)

Blue weakness

• Tritanopia [trahyt-n-oh-pee-uh] is the absence of blue sensitivity, therefore blue and green hues cannot be easily differentiated (Figure 4). This condition is rare, affecting approximately less than 1% of males.
• Tritanomaly [trahyt-n-om-uh-lee] is a blue sensitivity. This condition is extremely rare, affecting approximately 0.01% of both males and females.

How might someone with a blue weakness see an image?

Figure 4 - A representation of Tritanopic vision (generated with Vischeck tool)

How much impact can the condition have on general web use?

While I cannot speak for those with more rarer forms, my colour vision deficiency (Deuteranomaly) has never once seriously impacted on my use of the web. Furthermore, I don’t believe much effort is required to ensure that even those with the most severe forms of the condition can enjoy something approaching an equal visual representation.

Consider the use of extreme hues

Be wary when using pale or dark hues in close proximity to one another. Could that shade of yellow used for highlighting table rows/columns be considered too pale against the dominant white background? Could that very dark green link colour be hidden amongst the surrounding dark grey or black text?

Be aware of the common green weakness

As green seems to be the colour associated with the most common forms of the condition it seems logical to suggest a considered approach when attempting to place it in close proximity with pale yellows, reds, and blues (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - Green is the colour associated with the most common forms of colour deficiency

Test your designs and templates

In the same way you’d test the usability of an interface or the quality of your content, testing for potential visual issues caused by a colour deficiency should also be added to your quality control list. There are some great tools out there that only take a second or two to use.

Recommended tools

• Color Oracle – Colour blindness simulator for Windows, Mac and Linux
• Vischeck – Web-based colour blindness simulator for images and web pages
• etre’s Colour Blindness Simulator – Upload and test images against different types of colour vision deficiencies

Or, better still, ask a colour blind colleague, friend, or sibling for their eyes. We won’t bite, unless of course you’re inquisitively (and with more than a hint of cheek) dangling a red…no that’s definitely green…erm…yellow…pencil.

Sources

• Colour vision deficiency, Royal National Institute of Blind People
• Can Color-Blind Users See Your Site?, Microsoft Developer Network, 9 Oct 2000
• Quick tips, We are Colorblind
• Chapter 8, Readings on Color: The science of color, Alex Byrne and David R. Hilbert, MIT Press 1997

Figure 1 answers (from left to right): 12, 6, 2, and 42. See them all? Lucky you, I can clearly see 12 and can just about make out a 2, but the rest are just a brightly coloured array of dots. Pretty, mind.

As the Editorial Calendar ticks along it should start a chain reaction which sees the Editor first pass along the task of creating the content to the Creator. Technical support, in the shape of SEO and IA practitioners, as well as Researchers will help keep the Creator turning before eventually passing the content along to the Reviewer and, upon acceptance, the Publisher is then tasked with uploading the content and passing ultimate responsibility for its life cycle back to the Editor.

Of course, it’s always useful to have an effective Content Strategy in place to keep those cogs moving smoothly.

Look how we can save you more money than our competitors!

…or…

Look how we’re delivering a better service for our customers!

…chances are you’ll be greeted by an information graphic (or infographic) backing up said claim.

If complimented by sufficient summaries and visual highlights, infographics can maintain the reader’s interest and, crucially, let them get on with the task in hand.

But the options for visualising data don’t necessarily have to start and end with the usual bar charts, pie charts or scatter diagrams – there’s always room for a little imagination.

Take Artist and designer Susanna Hertrich’s Reality Checking Device – an interactive visual device for calculating the proportion of public outrage to life’s hazardous scenarios. Even ignoring the subject matter and it’s physical form, you have to admire the technique she’s used for rendering the data – it’s smart, powerful and, above all, simple. There’s not a number in sight.

Susanna’s visualisation technique could even be used in a few ways during a web project. How about a similar graphic which puts the needs of a business up against those of their readers? All subjective of course, but potentially impacting for stakeholders nonetheless.

My greyscale efforts of visualised data for this blog are, admittedly, more than a little tepid in comparison. Susanna’s and other such beautiful information renditions have certainly inspired me to think a little more creatively in future.