{"id":493,"date":"2018-12-07T10:28:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T10:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/?p=493"},"modified":"2018-12-07T10:32:38","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T10:32:38","slug":"festive-content-design-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/12\/07\/festive-content-design-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"8 festive content design tips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/12\/christmas-content-design-dog.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-532 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/12\/christmas-content-design-dog-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"Small dog wearing a santa hat holding a laptop displaying the Content Design blog.\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Before everyone goes away for a well earned break, I thought I would summarise 10 months of blog posts into 8 bitesize tips.<\/p>\n<p><b>Warning: this post may contain puns, tenuous\u00a0festive references and cheesy rhymes.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>1. Avoid giving an unwanted gift&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3>Create user stories and give your content a lift<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/11\/shutterstock_175060490.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"269\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright wp-image-501 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/11\/shutterstock_175060490-e1542988564649-269x300.jpg\" alt=\"Woman looking disappointed with an unwanted gift\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Try and have a user or job story for each page of your website to ensure all your content is wanted.<\/p>\n<h4>Related post<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/05\/17\/content-design-techniques-user-and-job-stories\/\">Content design techniques: User and job stories<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>2.\u00a0 Write out your cards and put up your tree&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3>A card sort or tree test with users is neat<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/11\/WestwayCreativeLab-005.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-500 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/11\/WestwayCreativeLab-005-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Imperial College holds a Creative Lab experience for pupils from a local school to design and create a Smart City technology\/ object, 9th November 2017 Photography by Fergus Burnett Accreditation required with all use - 'fergusburnett.com'\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Card sorting<\/strong> is a great way to get your users involved and to give you an idea of how they think and group content.<\/p>\n<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/03\/19\/content-design-techniques-card-sorting\/\">Content design techniques: card sorting<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/04\/12\/tools-for-card-sorting-and-tree-testing\/\">Tools for card sorting and tree testing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>3. Making a list and checking it twice&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3>Carry out an audit of your pages is nice<\/h3>\n<p>When you are planning a website redesign you should always <strong>audit<\/strong> your current site to see what you have to work with.<\/p>\n<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/02\/01\/content-design-techniques-content-audits\/\">Content design techniques: content audits<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/02\/16\/useful-tools-content-audits\/\">Useful tools for content audits<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>4. You don&#8217;t have to pull a cracker on your own&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/11\/shutterstock_19601350.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"129\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-499\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/files\/2018\/11\/shutterstock_19601350-300x129.jpg\" alt=\"Two people pulling a Christmas cracker\" \/><\/a>Write with someone else and set the tone<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Pair writing<\/strong> with a subject matter expert will help you to understand their subject and you can help them explain it to more a general audience.<\/p>\n<h4>Read more about pair writing<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/06\/15\/content-design-techniques-pair-writing\/\">Content design techniques: pair writing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/07\/19\/tools-for-collaborative-writing\/\">Tools for collaborative writing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>5. golden things!<\/h2>\n<p>Before you write any new content, ask yourself these 5 important questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Who is my audience?<\/li>\n<li>Why am I writing this document?<\/li>\n<li>How will my reader use this information?<\/li>\n<li>How should I present the information?<\/li>\n<li>How am I going to measure success?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>6. It&#8217;s beginning to look a lot like&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3>A competitor analysis<\/h3>\n<p>As part of your research, It&#8217;s useful to look at how your direct competitors are communicating to similar audiences.<\/p>\n<h4>Related post<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/2018\/10\/17\/techniques-competitor-analysis\/\">Techniques: competitor analysis<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>7. Make sure you are on his good list&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h3>Have accessible content. You get the gist!<\/h3>\n<p>Use descriptive headings and links in your copy and alternative text for your images.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/staff\/tools-and-reference\/web-guide\/training-and-events\/materials\/accessibility\/\"><strong>Read more about accessible content<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>8. Deck the halls with Imperial photography!<\/h2>\n<p>Did you know that there are over 150,000 images on Imperial&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/staff\/tools-and-reference\/web-guide\/tools\/asset-library\/\">Asset Library<\/a>? Use these to enhance your web pages.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>I wish everyone a lovely break, and a happy new year!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"giphy-embed\" src=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/CNKOHfK7NFVSw\" name=\"santa flying through a snowy scene on his sleigh pulled by his reindeer\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nAnimated image <a href=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/gifs\/christmas-1964-CNKOHfK7NFVSw\">via GIPHY<\/a> showing Santa flying through a snowy scene on his sleigh pulled by his reindeer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before everyone goes away for a well earned break, I thought I would summarise 10 months of blog posts into 8 bitesize tips. Warning: this post may contain puns, tenuous\u00a0festive references and cheesy rhymes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":534,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/content-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}