There’s been conversation recently, especially on the Google group for Content Strategy about what it takes to be a content strategist. What’s the background? What’s the education? What’s the experience? And how do I get to be one?

I don’t think I risk too much by suggesting that no one claiming the title of content strategist started out life as a content strategist. It’s a journey of self-discovery: “Oh, so that’s what I do!”

In my opinion, the path to becoming a content strategist begins with love—the love of content.

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“Content types” are among the least understood, and yet most potent, aspects of user experience and web design. Most people encounter them for the first time when implementing a grand-scale content management system (CMS) because you have to define content types before building templates for each kind of content you’re going to publish. (Everything I know about content types began with Bob Boiko’s Content Management Bible, and I recommend it to anyone facing a new CMS.)

Because they associate content types so closely with CMS, some make the mistake of equating content strategy with content management. They’re not the same thing, though they are certainly related. Your content strategy specifies the content types that will then be modeled for your CMS.

I want to take some time, then, to tell you what I understand about content typology, so that you’ll be able to address content types in your strategy.

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Colleen Jones (@leenjones), one of my colleagues from the Content Strategy Consortium (#csconsortium) recently published, “Toward Content Quality” on UXMatters.com. In it, she presents her cool checklists to use as heuristics when evaluating content quality. She’s invited feedback on the checklists, and so I am writing partly for that purpose, but also to put forth a complementary technique.

Colleen’s checklists cover the most important aspects of evaluation, but they imply (to me, at least) that a whole lot of background is already understood, such as the users’ needs, the overall strategy of the site, and most importantly, the measures against which one might gauge the success of the content under review. I don’t mean any criticism at all; I think she’s just more generous than I am, presuming someone has given these issues at least a little thought.

I’d like to propose a parallel activity to a heuristic evaluation of content, which I’m going to call a heuristic description of the content. Instead of saying whether the content meets specific success factors (e.g., does the content do this effectively?), infer from the content itself what its goal is and describe it as fully as possible.

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On UXMatters, as a comment to Colleen Jones′s (@leenjones) excellent piece on the heuristics for assessing the quality of content, Fred Brenton issued this challenge:

It would really help everyone concerned if any kind of article concerning content and usability was written in a way that everyone could understand.

I agree with him completely, and I′d like to give it a shot. Please, everyone, help me out because this is just the noob leading the noobs…

What is content?

Content is the substance of a website.

Content is the words, the pictures, the music, and the video.

Content is the descriptions, the pitches, the offers, the listings, the links, and the references.

Content is the instructions, the cues, the forms, the buttons, and the confirmations.

Content is the reviews, the ratings, the questions, the advice, the warnings, the praise, and the complaints.

Content is the reason that people visit a website.

Content:

• Tells them what they need to know.
• Shows them what they need to see.
• Helps them solve their problems.
• Offers them choices.
• Leads them through tasks.
• Builds relationships with them and among them.

In one way and another, content conveys all the value that a visitor gets out of a website.

So when someone asks you to define content, just say, ″It′s all the stuff on your website.″

Rachel Lovinger (@rlovinger) just published a great piece on categorizing, called “Splitting Tigers, Lumping Rabbits,” on Scatter/Gather. I love her simple, elegant advice: “You just need to find the right balance between lumping and splitting.”

Since I read it, I’ve been wondering: How do you find that balance? Is it just some feeling that comes upon you when you have all the pieces in the proper order? Is it like sorting male and female chicks?—something that is learned unconsciously through experience? Is there some way to work it out systematically?

I believe that finding the balance lies in discovering which distinctions make the most difference for the users of your content. If you can articulate what makes this thing different from that one, and why that difference matters to your users, then you will have identified the dimensions of difference. You will also have created a test for your categories, your labels, your navigation, and perhaps even the whole content strategy for your website.

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