This book is worth persisting with even if you find yourself flagging after the first few chapters. It’s not exhaustive and it’s not a technical manual, but it’s a useful overview of the processes, activities, skill sets and challenges involved in making sure web content does its job well.
Kristina Halvorson repeatedly argues that content is important, that content is always harder than it looks at first, and that content is all too often the component that gets overlooked when people plan and design websites. And she’s right. Even if you already rationally know these things, the chances are that the next web project you work on will run into exactly the sorts of problems Halvorson is talking about. And she is also correct when she says that these problems don’t just sit with clients – people working within user experience are just as guilty when it comes to skipping over content and seeing as stuff you just “pour in” at the end of the project.
This book will help you intervene when colleagues put “lorem ipsum” in wireframes and think their job is done. It’ll help you challenge clients when they tell you they’ll “do the content” in the final week before launch. And it’ll equip you to start exploring the emerging discipline of content strategy in more detail.
