In order to understand Content Strategy and Content Usability as actionable processes, it is helpful to compartmentalize the two practices. Content Strategy deals with the mechanics of translating the intangibles of a nascent product or service —purpose, idea, and message—into actionable components—procedure and execution. Similarly, Content Usability stresses examination of qualities of the audience—needs, preferences, and values—in order to create an intelligent, useful product. These basic principles—as well as the specifics that give these concepts form and appliciabilty—will be examined in the context of several studies and journal articles on Content Strategy and Content Usability.
Central to the practice of Content Usability is the relevancy of the target audience to the process of content creation. A recent article on the revision of sight-based media for use by the visually impaired ("Audio Description," 2020) introduces a more extreme perspective of this issue: audience is everything. The study presented several visual maps to a varied audience—from fully sighted to entirely blind individuals—and asked them to list the features of a map that they considered vital or useful for comprehension.
The results of this study are valuable to a Content Usability perspective: as expected, those who were visually impaired found the usage of maps nearly or entirely useless in their standard form. However, their responses did not stop at that juncture. Though the visually impaired could make no use of a visual map in its current state, they had well-developed ideas as to what specific aspects of a map could be transcribed into a suitable medium for their usage. This brings attention to a universal truth of content creation: no product or service, regardless of purpose or inventor, can function optimally without regard for its target audience.
The creation of content requires more than a basic acknowledgement of the audience—the product or service must be designed to suit the target audience needs and desires. As the article clearly demonstrates, these needs and preferences may well transcend a minor adjustment to style, formatting, or content. Depending on how broad or esoteric the audience, creators may even have to begin their designing process with the audience, and work up from there.
Under the methodology of Content Strategy, the target audience is just one of many inputs that must be considered before a product is created. In Bringing Clarity to Content Strategy (2019), R. A. Bailie explores the three types of needs that drive Content Strategy: "business needs", "content needs", and "user needs" (p. 123). In user needs, we can find a simple analogue in Content Usability. The other two inputs, however, are native to the broader discipline of Content Strategy:
According to Bailie, business needs are the "drivers" (p.123) that motivate a business or organization to seek the structural and procedural improvement that Content Strategy provides. These drivers can be summed up as desires, or goals for the business. Most common among these goals are desires for new markets, increased brand trust, and heightened opperational efficiency.
Bailie describes content needs as the "editorial and technical aspects" (p. 123) that are left to consider after both business and user needs have been identified. In other words, content needs are the imperatives placed upon the content creators once parameters have been set by both the buisness and the users—parameters such as resource constraints, special audience concerns, and unique or specfic mediums of delivery.
Introduction to Content Strategy and Usability
References for Content Strategy and Usability