I recently contributed my thoughts and experiences with “content ROT.” “ROT” stands for “redundant,” outdated (or obsolete) and “trivial” content on a website, or any digital platform. Here’s what I presented to graduate students in a content strategy class: Content ROT — what it is From my understanding and experience, “content ROT” refers to the current “bad” state
Read on »Posts By: Dave Bartkowiak Jr.
A reminder: What your stakeholders want vs. what your users want
I recently was reminded of one of my favorite diagrams which depicts how content strategy is often ignored. It’s this simple: Credit: xkcd.com Right?! Doesn’t every website you’ve ever visited have this problem? Just swap out “university website” with “news website” or “health insurance” website … or anything else. I particularly love the “full name
Read on »The Great ClickOnDetroit Content Audit of 2017
Before I can begin “The Great ClickOnDetroit Navigation Redesign of 2017,” I must first complete “The Great ClickOnDetroit Content Audit of 2017.” This begins with none other than spreadsheets and sitemaps. As an information architect, this excites me in the nerdiest way possible. Here’s the plan: Collect all pages (static, not article pages) and record the URLs,
Read on »Visualizing content strategy within UX design
Here is one interpretation of content strategy within the bigger picture of UX design. Content strategy covers areas of UX design including the collection of content, writing, editing, producing, managing, governance, style guide production and collaboration with everyone within an organization who has ownership or expertise in a content area. Collaboration with content owners might
Read on »Content strategy: Delivering structure to ambiguous things
I was recently asked during an interview for a UX job if I thought of myself as a person who likes structure or ambiguity more. This struck me as odd. Not because it was a bad question. It was an excellent question. But I fumbled the answer. Maybe that was the point, yet it bothers
Read on »Combining content strategy and UX design
As someone who has worked in content production and management, I can tell you it can feel like the backbone of everything, that everything lives and dies with your content production, the quality of the content, and how well you govern and manage it all. Maybe that feels like a bias statement to you, especially if you believe design
Read on »Redesigning a community library website
Have you ever tried to use your local community library website? What did you visit the site for? What did you find when you got there? Was it anything useful? Research revealed it likely wasn’t a pleasant experience, and you probably picked up the phone and called the librarian for help finding the information you
Read on »Award-winning news page design — Tragedy on the Trail
The Michigan Association of Broadcasters recently awarded me and my colleague a “best in category” award for new media. “Tragedy on the Trail” is a section on ClickOnDetroit dedicated to our coverage of a murder case in Armada, Mich. We are humbled to have received such an award. Hopefully it means we helped bring closure to
Read on »Arduino.cc IA blueprinting
I recently whipped together some blueprinting for arduino.cc. Here is my short critique, followed by the blueprints (download PDF here): The primary problem with Arduino.cc is different sections of the site living at different sub domains with different global navigation systems. This makes it difficult for users to understand where he or she is at
Read on »Reorganization Information Architecture
Here’s a quick reorganization of an information architecture — view PDF here.
Read on »