- Introduction
- Designing Content
- Example: Content Ideas for the Hacker Phrase Web Business
- Homework Assignment 4: Choosing Good Content
- Glossary of Business and Technical Terms
Example: Content Ideas for the Hacker Phrase Web Business
Let's brainstorm ideas for a Web business whose theme is "hacker phrases." What would we put on such a site? Since the site focuses on hacker phrases, we need a page for those phrases—a hacker "phrase of the week" page. We should also include an archive of past weeks' phrases. Finally, it would be nice to get user feedback about the phrases, so we might have polls in which users can rate past phrases. Of course, a site with just those three pieces of content could be fairly boring. What else can we add? There's plenty of material indirectly related to the theme of our site. For example, a page that defines the term hacker would be a good addition, even though it's not directly related to the theme of "hacker phrases." For fun, we could have a test that a user could take, which would automatically score how much of a hacker he or she is. We might also want to include a page that describes the history of hacking. Maybe a page that describes the history of the site would be interesting. Hackers have their own lexicon, so a dictionary that defines hacker words would be a great addition as well. Finally, a forum for hacker discussion could be good. We could brainstorm a longer list, but that should suffice for instructional purposes.
Step 1. List Content Ideas
The first step is simply to list content ideas along with a brief description, as follows:
|
Idea |
Description |
|
Hacker Phrases |
A list of things hackers say |
|
Hacker Phrase Archive |
List of past hacker phrases |
|
Hacker Phrase Rater |
Rates the past hacker phrases |
|
Hacker Definition |
Describes what a hacker is |
|
Hacker Test |
A test that a user can take to determine whether he or she is a hacker, and how hardcore of a hacker |
|
Hacker History |
The history of hackers |
|
Site History |
A description of how the "hacker phrase" site came into existence |
|
Hacker Dictionary |
Definitions of hacker terminology |
|
Hacker Pictures |
Pictures of hackers |
|
Hacker Forum |
A message board on which hackers can exchange information |
With your content ideas written down, the next step is to categorize them.
Steps 2–3. Categorize the Content Ideas
Next we categorize ideas in terms of value and who generates the content. For value, we'll have three levels: high, medium, and low. The content can be generated by the site designer (that's us), by a user, or by a script.
|
Idea |
Value |
Generated by |
|
Hacker Phrases |
High |
designer |
|
Hacker Phrase Archive |
High |
script |
|
Hacker Phrase Rater |
Medium |
users |
|
Hacker Definition |
Low |
designer |
|
Hacker Test |
Medium |
script |
|
Hacker History |
Medium |
designer |
|
Site History |
Low |
designer |
|
Hacker Dictionary |
High |
script (database) |
|
Hacker Pictures |
Low |
designer |
|
Hacker Forum |
Medium |
users |
With the content categorized according to value and who generates it, the final step is to rank the ideas.
Step 4. Rank the Content Ideas According to Value and Who Generates the Content
Ideas are ranked according to content value first, and then by who generates the content. Ideas linked to high-value content are listed before low-value content. For ideas with the same content-value ranking, content generated by scripts is ranked ahead of that generated by users. Content generated by the site designer (us) is ranked last.
|
Idea |
Value |
Generated by |
|
Hacker Dictionary |
High |
script (database) |
|
Hacker Phrase Archive |
High |
script |
|
Hacker Phrases |
High |
designer |
|
Hacker Test |
Medium |
script |
|
Hacker Phrase Rater |
Medium |
users |
|
Hacker Forum |
Medium |
users |
|
Hacker History |
Medium |
designer |
|
Hacker Definition |
Low |
designer |
|
Site History |
Low |
designer |
|
Hacker Pictures |
Low |
designer |
With our list generated, it's easy to see what we should implement: all the high-value content ideas in which the content is added by the users or generated automatically. The exception is the hacker phrases, which are added by us, but only because they are updated but once a week. If the frequency was less than weekly, it wouldn't be implemented, or a similar mechanism would have to be designed in which the phrases were generated automatically or contributed by the site's users. All the medium-value script and user content ideas should be implemented as well, as they provide the user with good value and don't require us to do any ongoing work. This includes the hacker test, the hacker phrase rater, and the hacker forum. The remaining ideas that are low value or that require the designer (us) to generate them should be implemented last, or not at all.
So now we have an initial set of content to put on the Hacker Phrase site and we can start filling-in our business model (see Figure 5).
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The autonomous business model with some content details filled in.
With the content determined, we can now look at more traditional content-design issues. Specifically, next week we'll look at designing the user interface for the Web business, focusing on design issues for the layout, form, and interaction of the content we've just chosen.