The sponsors and DOER asked PixelMEDIA to consolidate the 6 separate websites into one site and to create a single branded user experience: Mass Save.

Success Factors

Mass Save’s strategic objective was straightforward: to encourage residents and businesses to be energy efficient through increased awareness and through direct energy-saving incentives offered by the Mass Save sponsors. PixelMEDIA identified three key project initiatives to achieve this goal:

Define audience segments and needs-based categories

Working with a team that included each sponsoring company, PixelMEDIA helps to define the target audiences and segment them into Residential, Business, and Professional (contractors, architects, etc.) categories.

With the categories in place, the team defined the needs and goals of each segment, as well as the business rules that would determine eligibility, availability, and call to action for each.  At the same time, PixelMEDIA looked at the six original websites to determine each one’s value proposition; the unique content; and the engagement model and call to action.

The resulting organization model was based on a progressive sequence that matched incentives with the needs of users at several levels: Lighting and Appliances, Heating and Cooling, and Building a House or Addition. Customers could take small, low-cost steps—such as installing compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) or replacing a refrigerator—or learn about “whole house” solutions that offered incentives on heat and hot water systems, air conditioning, or home insulation. In addition, customers could easily browse across categories to learn about other energy-saving opportunities and make plans for improvements throughout their homes and businesses.

Since the initial launch, two more categories have been added to accommodate the long-term goals of deeper energy savings and enhanced awareness about energy efficiency: Home Energy Assessments and the Learning Center.

Develop a tool to deliver localized incentives

Because incentives were specific to certain sponsors, PixelMEDIA needed to develop a mechanism that prevented customers from seeing incentives that were not offered in their service areas. A ZIP-code based incentive finder was designed to let customers identify their location, fuel type, and building type.

Once a customer entered a ZIP code, the incentive finder matched it against a database of the sponsors’ service areas. The fuel type and building type data refined the search to return gas or electric incentives and incentives designed for single or multi-family homes. In addition, the incentive finder filtered out out-of-state customers and customers of municipal power companies. The system was intelligent enough, however, to return results to municipal electric customers who heated their homes with gas.

Deploy an enterprise-level content management system

The consolidation of the 6 websites provided an opportunity to reduce production and administrative costs. PixelMEDIA implemented an enterprise-grade content management system (CMS) for Mass Save that streamlines the process of creating, approving, and publishing new content to the website by multiple sponsors and vendors. PixelMEDIA also provides support services for major revisions and user training. In addition to reducing production cost and complexity, the CMS enables a structured approach based on the branded look and feel of the website.

Results

The consolidation of six websites into one resulted in a unified, branded user experience and a single destination to support a range of statewide and regional energy efficiency campaigns. The masssave.com URL provides a simple, easy-to-remember call to action in television, radio, outdoor, and print advertising and provides a recognizable, trusted presence at events across the state.

In the time since the 2010 launch, the website has seen an increase of more than 500% in visitors, and more than 5 million page views—an increase of 570%.

In May, 2011, PixelMEDIA implemented a customized analytics framework that will coordinate site activity—including conversions and downloads—with the growing spectrum of marketing efforts. The tracking tools have enabled the Mass Save team to accurately track the steady increase in active participation on the site.

In the fall of 2011, the residential section was redesigned to add the Home Energy Assessments and Learning Center categories and relaunched in conjunction with a range of marketing efforts.

In October, 2011, Massachusetts was ranked as the country’s leading state in terms of energy efficiency investment and initiatives by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The State Energy Efficiency Scorecard ranks the states based on best practices and leadership in energy efficiency policy and program implementation. Prior to the launch of the Mass Save program, marketing campaigns, and website, Massachusetts had been ranked third.

The new Mass Save brand continues to grow as a focal point for sponsors, state agencies, contractors, and energy customers, with an increasing emphasis on no-cost home energy assessments, financing, and contractor participation.

Success Factors

Empirix had a solid internal working group in place to drive the messaging and content of the new website, including the re-alignment of its extensive product offerings with its new solutions framework. In addition, Empirix was developing a new logo and brand identity elements that would be incorporated into the new website. PixelMEDIA identified 3 key elements needed for a successful outcome:

Message Architecture

PixelMEDIA experience designers worked with the Empirix team to focus the company’s value proposition and to articulate a set of proof points for audience segments that needed to design, test, and deploy large call centers and customer service operations. The message architecture stressed a broader solution-based approach built on a proven portfolio of products, and was used by the Empirix team as a guideline for copywriting for both online and traditional media.

Information Architecture

The experience designers at PixelMEDIA created a full inventory of the Empirix website and worked with Empirix to determine which content best supported the new positioning and where content would need to be edited or created. Using the inventory, PixelMEDIA created a new site architecture that put solutions at the forefront while providing a clear and logical organization of the Empirix product portfolio.

Content Design

The goal of the architecture was to present products in the context of a customer challenge and Empirix solution, and to help customers focus on the content that was relevant to their situations. A set of detailed wireframes was created for each level of the website to visualize how the content would be organized and presented on screen. PixelMEDIA also produced a set of Microsoft® Word® content templates and a style guide to help the Empirix team draft and edit page copy within recommended word and character counts.

Solution

Using the wireframes and the new Empirix design elements, PixelMEDIA designers created the Adobe® Photoshop® layouts that would be used to build the final HTML templates. A clean, 3-column grid provided put the new content front and center, while providing clear navigation and focus areas for related topics and calls-to-action. With the final designs and approved content from Empirix, PixelMEDIA’s development team coded and QA’d the new website and spent a full day with the Empirix developers to ensure they had the information needed for a successful launch.

Results

The new Empirix website went live in November, 2011. The redesigned website gives Empirix a powerful new focal point for its outbound marketing programs and news releases. In addition, the website now supports a sales process that is centered around solutions, and helps Empirix to deliver a higher-level value proposition to higher-value customers at the enterprise and solution-provider levels.

Success Factors

The sponsors and DOER asked PixelMEDIA to consolidate the 6 separate websites into single Mass Save website and to create a unique brand identity. The new brand would serve as a recognizable focal point for a wide range of online and traditional marketing activities, and having a single brand would reduce the cost and complexity of maintaining multiple marks and identity systems. PixelMEDIA identified 3 key elements needed for a successful outcome:

Stakeholder Input

PixelMEDIA conducted a one-day workshop with the sponsors to map Mass Save brand attributes against the emotional and rational drivers for the three main audience segments: residential customers, businesses, and industry professionals.

Message Architecture

Using the resulting brand attributes map, PixelMEDIA worked with the sponsors to developed a value proposition and a set of key messaged based on “Savings through energy efficiency,” “Ease of access,” “Trust and expertise,” and “Investing in the future.” The resulting message architecture continues to serve as the framework for writing the Mass Save website.

Mood Boards

The PixelMEDIA Creative Services team presented a set of “mood boards” to sponsors and stakeholders. A mood board is a set of colors, images, typefaces, and other design elements grouped to convey a feeling or mood—futuristic, earthy, businesslike, etc.—and to elicit a “gut” reaction. The Mass Save “neighborhood” that appears at the top of each page reflects the positive reactions to a warm, “traditional” approach that would speak to a diverse audience that included residential customers, businesses, and trade professionals.

Solution

Based on the approved mood boards and message architecture, PixelMEDIA produced a complete visual identity for Mass Save: logo, typography, colors, and supporting imagery. The approved logo continues the “building” theme with houses and multi-story buildings against a sunburst. The logo and brand elements provided the foundation for the design of the website and were distributed to the agencies that were creating campaigns and content for Mass Save. PixelMEDIA also produced a design and editorial style guide to ensure that the brand elements are properly applied in order to remain legally protected.

The resulting visual design and editorial tone reflect the spirit and mission of Mass Save as well as the needs of its audiences: easy access to incentives and information; clean, simple controls; and a commitment to helping customers understand the many energy-saving opportunities available through Mass Save.

Results

The consolidation of six websites into one resulted in a unified, branded user experience and a single destination to support a range of statewide and regional energy-efficiency campaigns. The Mass Save brand offers a simple, easy-to-remember identity in television, radio, outdoor, and print advertising and provides a recognizable, trusted presence at events across the state.

The new Mass Save brand continues to grow as a focal point for sponsors, state agencies, contractors, and energy customers, with an increasing emphasis on no-cost home energy assessments, financing, and contractor participation.

That’s what makes working on The Friends Project new website so interesting—and rewarding. The Friends Project is a non-profit organization in Portsmouth, NH, that organizes events and activities for people with disabilities. I met its tireless founder and president, Heidi Chase, as well as Nathaniel, a participant, and his parents, in our project kickoff meeting.

Our meeting agenda was basically the same as for a business client. Why not? The same questions and principles apply: Who is the audience? What are they looking for? What do you have to offer? What do you want them to do? We hit the whiteboards and the Friends Project team dug right in.

Audiences

We listed the potential audiences, which included participants, parents, volunteers, staff, donors and supporters, the press, and the general public. We realized that the audience was divided into two main categories. Participants (including parents and volunteers) use the site to see schedules, event listings, locations, and pictures of past activities. The General Public comes to donate, volunteer, read news, and get more background on the project. Nathaniel gave us great information about the things that participants care about. The resulting organization model pushed participant-focused content to the foreground. Public-focused content was featured in the utility navigation.

Goals

Next, we began to think more strategically about how the new site could help the Friends Project achieve its goals. There was the business side: Attract more donations. Raise awareness about the program and about people with disabilities. Make it easier to publish new content and update event listings. And there was the fun side: build a site that participants could call their own and that had lots of pictures of their friends.

Key tasks

Tasks were organized by the two main audience segments. Donating was at the top of the list for the general public—especially if there was an easy way to make donations on a regular basis through a service like PayPal. For participants, the most important tasks were learning about programs, checking the calendar for updates, and seeing pictures and videos of past events. Key documents were also identified: an emergency contact form and a volunteer information form for download.

Feature List

Finally, we went around the table to brainstorm the features of the new website. Ideas included a monthly calendar that showed upcoming events. A page for comments from parents and participants. A place on the home page for last-minute listings or cancellations. And, most important, an interactive gallery for photos and videos. Nathaniel and his parents focused on features that made it easy to find information about programs and events. For Heidi and her team, it was important that the features be easy to update and maintain.

What we discovered

For every project, success in the end is largely determined by the quality of the information in the beginning. We took a businesslike approach to the Friends Project website. And it worked due to the great insight from Heidi, Nathaniel, and Nathaniel’s parents. Soon, the Friends Project will have a new website that has been designed with the needs of its audience squarely in mind. For us at PixelMEDIA, the opportunity to work with people with disabilities has shown us that audience needs are pretty universal. In fact, the business community might learn a thing or two from the Friends Team.

You can click on the org model image below to see it better.

Organization Model for The Friends Project

In the support & maintenance division, edits are often purely functional and extremely urgent.  One thing I try to do with my clients is suggest small improvements above and beyond the standard maintenance requests, and emphasize how easy it is to keep the request affordable.  Almost everyone wants to “do it right,” but clients often have a boss ready to veto 30 hours to redesign and rebuild the entire products section.  However, customers may not realize that significant improvements can be made despite limited time and budget:

• 1-2 hours for an information architect look at a problematic page that frequently elicit customer complaints
• ½ hour for a copywriter to punch up the language on a flat homepage promotion
• 2-3 hours for a designer to restyle a confusing chart so that users can get critical product information “at a glance”
• 3-4 hours for a developer to automate a task that normally takes the client 1-2 hours to accomplish using a content management system (CMS) several times weekly
• 15 minutes to create a Google Analytics account and add the code to a landing page to make sure a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is effective

Affordable suggestions like these introduce clients to expertise that normally only get tapped during large-scale projects. They also remind them that we really do have their best interest in mind and that we are as frustrated by the “bubble gum and duct tape” add-ons to their website as they are. It’s important for everyone to remember that while a full-scale website redesign might not be possible during tough times, these “small victories” in key places (i.e., where customers often identify difficulty) can happen on a regular basis, and often have a big impact. The focus and frequency of these changes can draw attention to improvements that might have otherwise gotten lost during an overwhelming, large-scale redesign, and show users that your company strives to be responsive.  Innovation, intelligence, and creativity in small doses can still be enough to inspire customer involvement and loyalty.

Not everyone has an iPhone or Blackberry Storm. A lot of users have simple smart phones, requiring careful thought into how deep content lies within the Mobile Experience and how many clicks it takes to get to it.

Information Architecture and Interaction Design for Mobile needs to take this into account and requires the structure to contain a number of “either/or” choices and tailoring the navigation (modified from the work of Christian Crumlish):

• If at all possible, limit the number of categories to five (5)
• To help users access links quickly, choose the top 10 per page to assign numerical access
  
• Minimize the number of levels of navigation: the deeper the content is, the harder to drill in and out
  
• Reorder the site categories by priority to best suit the needs of the Mobile audience. Speaking to users will help determine the best approach for this.
• Make telephone numbers links:
  <a href=”tel:+19995551234”>+1 999 555-1234</a>

Be prepared to spend time working through the navigation and interaction modeling for the Mobile Experience. In order to simplify the structure into an intuitive experience that breaks the content down into digestible chunks takes patience. Ironically, simplification is one of the more complicated processes, but the payoff at the end of the day is worth it. Just ask your happy users.

But it also turned out, that the majority of the client stakeholders were puzzled as to what PixelMEDIA was providing. They didn’t understand what Information Architecture was, and hadn’t even thought about the overall user experience for the product. Yet, they had requested an IA. How odd.

The understanding was that we were to immediately dive in and create a series of wireframes outlining the key screens for the application. This proved a difficult place to start, as we didn’t have (a) a clear design objective (b) we didn’t know what the users needed to do or (c) how the new product would help them do it better and more easily than they imagined possible. At our request we rewound a bit, and after a few meetings, all parties agreed on the basic design objective, which enabled us to ensure the customer’s needs, the brand, and the business objectives were balanced and clearly articulated.

Next, PixelMEDIA took the initiative to craft a set of task flows. This was an interesting decision, because we didn’t think we’d need to create such documentation for the project; but taking this step provided everyone a deeper insight into how we could craft a new experience as the design process continued. We focused our efforts on outlining the user’s primary goals and how they would achieve them in order to form the core of the application’s design. This allowed us to focus on the features that matter most to the customer. The task flows provided a visual mechanic that showed gaps in the requirements documentation, as well as providing a way to further the vision and understanding of the application.

Once the task flows were completed and approved, PixelMEDIA began designing the experience’s basic framework. We kept the requirements focused in a set of wireframes that outlined a typical scenario, to visualize how the customers would walk through the application and achieve their goals.

The client has been exceptionally pleased with the work to date, and PixelMEDIA has developed a more strategic partnership by bringing the project solution to completion. As the wireframes portion of the project nears completion, all parties feel that the resulting solution provides a more elegant, simple and streamlined experience for the customers.

Or in the customer’s own words:

We are obviously very new at some of this stuff and a large part of why we chose to go with PixelMEDIA is because we were confident that you wouldn’t just throw a design over the wall; rather, you would work *with* us, regardless of the fact that we would slow you down. We’re all learning quite a bit from this experience, and I for one am very impressed by what you guys have done and how you’ve helped our team figure out which direction we should try to head in.

By thinking less tactically and more broadly, PixelMEDIA has been able to educate the client on the importance of Information Architecture, and helped the client identify what their customers needed most from the application.

Unlike IA, content strategists don’t have a consistent set of practices and deliverables. We don’t produce site maps, or organizational models, or clickable wireframes, or any of that cool stuff. And we don’t create beautiful page layouts that finally—finally—look like a real website.

But—Lo!—I think I’ve found the answer.

The Content Strategist’s job is to ask a simple question: “What’s the point?”

We have to ask it about the website itself. We have to ask it about every bit of content. We have to ask it throughout the project. We have to ask it without looking like we don’t know what’s happening. And we have to ask it in such a way that our clients and colleagues don’t take offense.

Or perhaps we shouldn’t worry if anyone takes offense. “What’s the point?” isn’t a good question—it’s a great question. Maybe the only question.

OK, OK. Here’s my point: Content = Purpose

Most clients are quite accommodating when we ask for content. We usually get a lot more that we ask for—and a lot less of what we actually need. If we don’t ask the question, “What’s the point?”at the very beginning, it’s a lot harder (and time consuming and expensive) to extract the content that serves the purpose.

So we should stop asking FOR the content and start asking ABOUT the content. Right after we pop the big question.

Join the discussion: What’s the difference between “content” and “information?”

What’s the difference between ‘information” and “content?”

I wasn’t looking for answers, just ideas and maybe a spirited discussion. Heck, the best I could do was. “I know it when I see it.” Check out some of the responses from the whiteboard.

• You can have “too much information” but you can never have too much content.
• To be information, you add value. To be content, you are happy.
• Good content is information:
  Data = 48°, 52°, 67°, 55°, 58°
  Information = 67°F
  Knowledge = “67°F is warm. I’ll wear shorts.”
  Wisdom = “However, I’m going to work, and shorts aren’t allowed there.”
• Content is information that is contained.
• Information = “short-twitch muscles” = power
  Content = “long-twitch muscles” = endurance
• Content is contextually appropriate information.

I posed the question when I heard the two terms used in close proximity and sometimes interchangeably. More questions followed. How does my role as Content Strategist intersect with that of the Information Architect? Does the IA turn content into information? Do I turn information into content? Why should a client pay for a Content Strategist and an Information Architect?

Is the distinction important? If not, why make the distinction?

Maybe I’m veering into Zen koan territory here, but I’d love to get perspectives from everyone who handles content—and that’s a lot of people. While there are several disciplines associated with Information (e.g., Information Architect, Information Designer, Information Analyst), there are few identified with Content. Is Content Strategy an emerging field, a clever re-naming of another discipline, or a made-up term?

Put another way: Everyone agrees that content is king. The Big Kahuna. The Holy Grail. But there seems to be some uncertainty as to what it is, where it comes from, and who is responsible for it.

And there has to be a better answer than, “I know it when I see it.”

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