Content planning - Redhouse Lane Communications

Department of Health: Content planning

How the DH put users first

Challenge

The wisdom of crowds may be helpful if you’re buying ahoover, but it’s less so (if not downright dangerous) if you think you haveswine flu.

As online diagnosis tools proliferate, authoritative (evenprescriptive) information is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.

The Department of Health needed reassurance that its sitewas utterly reliable, bang up-to-date, fast and easy to access, so it could cutthrough the digital noise.

Our response

Based on a review of two representative sections ofdh.gov.uk, we recommended a logical content structure and mapped the existingcontent against it, to identify anything that needed revising or repurposing.

Once we’d tested the new information architecture with keyusers and stakeholders, we produced:

content templates
a hierarchy of landing pages
a styleguide, which we used to standardise thecontent and metadata.

The copy needed to be easy to digest without compromisingaccuracy or authority. This involved diplomacy as well as editorial skills, todemonstrate to scientific policymakers that simplifying isn’t the same asdumbing down.

Result

User testing helped make the finished site easy tonavigate, with most information accessible in no more than three clicks – andthat information was current, succinct and nailed to the styleguide.

As an added bonus, we helped to identify who within theDepartment owns what content, and to raise awareness of the importance ofonline communication among staff.