Whatıs worked for us is education. Iıve moaned about trying to implement
publishing workflows and other automation-type solutions, but there are
always edge cases (³This needs to go up RIGHT NOW!²) that break such
things or turn it into such a bottleneck that everyone starts looking for
ways around it.
We gave our content folks 3 heuristics to gauge their work:
1. The Magic Number Seven
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two)
2. Optimize for F-shaped content scanning
(http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/)
3. Understand above/below the fold
You may notice that these heuristics have a lot to do with content
prioritization and layout. Thatıs not an accident. It turns out, when you
get content creators to think about re-arranging their content, they are
less inclined to do things like litter the page with bold and colors and
exclamation marks, because they have better ways of drawing the usersı
attention to the content (generally, by sticking it up top). It also gets
them to think about content as a whole. Are you miffed that no one is
seeing your very important blinking rainbow text near the end of the page?
Maybe it would be better suited on its own page with similar content that
is of a more digestible length. That sort of thing.
-Sean
---
Sean Hannan
Senior Web Developer
Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
On 4/17/14, 7:42 PM, "Simon LeFranc" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>My organization has recently adopted an enterprise Content Management
>System. For the first time, staff across 8 divisions became web authors,
>given responsibility for their division's web pages. Training on the
>software, which has a WYSIWYG interface for editing, is available and
>with practice, all are capable of mastering the basic tools. Some simple
>style decisions were made for them, however, it is extremely difficult to
>get these folks not to elaborate on or improvise new styles. Examples:
>
> making text red or another color in the belief that color will draw
>readers' attention making text bold and/or italic and/or the size of a
>war-is-declared headline (see 1); using images that are too small to
>be effective adding a few more images that are too small to be
>effective attempting to emphasize statements using ! or !! or !!!!!
>writing in a too-informal tone ("Come on in outta the rain!") [We are a
>research organization and museum.] feeling compelled to ornament pages
>with clipart, curlicues, et al. centering everything
>There is no one person in the organization with the time or authority to
>act as editorial overseer. What are some techniques for ensuring that the
>site maintains a clean, professional appearance?
>
>Simon
>
>
