Make the right content choices

To make the right content choices, first ask these high-level questions:

  • Who is the intended audience?

  • What is the user’s goal? What is the user trying to accomplish?

  • What is your goal for providing the content?

  • What type of content will best meet the user’s needs and your objectives?

  • Will a user access the content from a desktop, phone or other mobile device, a console—or all of these?

  • Will the content be translated or localized? For more information, see Chapter 3.

  • How will the user find the content?

  • How will success be measured?

  • What are the budget and schedule constraints?

Your answers to these questions will help narrow your options so that you can focus on the best approaches for your user. For example, you might decide that either text or video would be appropriate for your user, but you know that your content will be localized into at least five languages, and you have a small initial budget for the project. Creating and localizing high-quality video is expensive, so you might choose text as the best choice to begin with and then, as you measure the text’s success, you might be able to justify the larger investment in localized video.

Use the following table to help choose the type of web content to create:

If your user needs

Consider this type of content

Examples

To learn about a simple task or feature in an application

Procedural text with screen shots

Short screen-capture video, with or without audio

Procedure with screen shots: Remove a page break

Screen-capture video with audio: Search or move around in a document using the navigation pane

To learn about a complex task or a feature in an application

Screen-capture video, with or without audio

Procedural text with screen shots

Procedural text with embedded screen-capture video

End-to-end scenario descriptions or conceptual topics

Technical papers

Video with audio: Protecting a Word document with AD RMS

Procedure with screen shots: Add or remove text effects

Procedure with screen-capture video: Create a theme

End-to-end scenarios:

DirectAccess Test Lab for Windows Server 2008 R2

Network connection problems in Windows

Ongoing, regular communications from you

Blog

Microblog (such as Twitter)

Newsletter

OneNote, The Microsoft Office Blog; http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-onenote/

Virtual PC Guy’s blog

TechNet Flash Newsletter

Ongoing engagement and participation with a like-minded community

Wiki

Forum

TechNet wiki

Exchange Server Forum

Microsoft Answers; http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us

To learn something complex that takes time and practice

Online training

Technical white papers

Windows Phone 7 Training Course

Windows PowerShell Survival Guide

To learn high-level concepts about technology subjects

Concept papers

eBooks

An Enterprise Approach to Gov 2.0. Microsoft download center:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/default.aspx

Cloud Basics: Security in the Cloud. Microsoft download center:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/default.aspx

Detailed information about a product or technology on an ongoing basis

Podcasts

Technical white papers

Technical blogs

The Crabby Office Lady Podcasts

Microsoft SQL Azure Team Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlazure/

To learn tips and tricks

eBooks

Microblogs (such as Twitter)

eBook: Windows 7 Tips and Tricks:http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/default.aspx

Microblog: FedDidUKnow: You can easily turn your #Access database #applications into #SharePoint 2010 applications. http://bit.ly/3UaScH #gov #governance

To understand a complex or integrated feature or scenario

Interactive posters

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Component Architecture (with Service Pack 1)

To learn complex troubleshooting or decision making processes

Interactive flowcharts

Software Update Deployment Superflow

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