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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