The City of New York
NYC.gov
NYC.gov is the Web portal for the City of New York. The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications oversees both the portal and the design and management of the over 70 City agencies.
Timely, Useful Content for the Residents of New York City
NYC.gov is a central location from which residents, visitors, and businesses can access and learn more about what New York City has to offer. I was hired to edit all existing content and write new content for the redesign of NYC.gov, which launched in January of 2004.
Consistent, Clear Content on All City Sites
In addition to maintenance of the portal content, I work with the more than 70 City agencies to redesign their websites in accordance with new design and content guidelines. The goal is to provide residents and visitors a clear, helpful resource to all City government information, focusing on what users need to know without overwhelming them with bureaucracy or a glut of outdated information.
CityShare
CityShare is the primary intranet for New York City's over 300,000 employees. Once primarily a small set of pages with links on them, the site is now over 250 pages of organized, useful content.Several agencies manage the human resources and benefits information for City employees. Still more agencies provide online tools and resources employees need for their jobs. CityShare aggregates this information into one central site that includes:
- News relevant to City employees
- Human resources content, including training schedules, orientation information, and guidelines
- Benefits and payroll content, including health plan details, pay schedules, and tax breaks
- Tools and applications, including an online employee directory, events calendar, and several community portals
Kaplan
Kaplan College offers certifications, bachelor's degrees, masters degrees, and a law degree online to several thousand students across the country. Kaplan's courses use a combination of independent study, group work, and synchronous discussions to engage students in courses that are flexible enough to meet their needs.
Creating Courses That Work Online
At Kaplan, I worked with content experts (who were often the instructors for the courses we were creating) and instructional designers to create college-level courses in ethics, english, and criminal procedure that highlight the strengths of online learning.
As project manager, I used the knowledge of the content expert/instructor and the framework provided by the instructional designer to create courses that worked within Kaplan's system. As editor, I wrote assignments in collaboration with the instructor and/or instructional designer. I also edited the content of the courses and the supplemental reading materials, which sometimes exceeded 200 pages. I was responsible for:
- Ensuring the course met curriculum needs and assessment requirements
- Working with the development team to upgrade technology as needed
- Testing technology improvements
- Creating the new courses within the content management system
- Developing assignments
- Editing and fact-checking course content
EPCjobs
EPCjobs is a staffing spin-off of the global manufacturing construction company Bechtel. EPCjobs.com is a staffing tool used not only by those looking for work within that industry, but also by staffing professionals and administrators managing staffing on large, long-term projects.
Localized Content in a Short Timeframe
A month before the launch of EPCjobs, I was hired to make any improvements to the content time allowed. After a full review of the site, however, it became clear there were substantial issues, and although the site would launch anyway, it would have to be substantially re-architected and re-written after the initial launch. For the first month, I worked to make the content UK-specific, fix any typos, and clarify the messaging and instructions wherever possible.
A New and Improved EPCjobs
Once the first version of the site was up and in QA, I went to work with an Information Architect to re-design the site section by section, user by user. Our main goal was to clarify processes and improve consistency wherever possible.
- All automated emails (over 100) were reviewed and additional emails were written to clarify next steps and set expectations.
- Help content was created with each user in mind.
- Rules of style and continuity were developed to ensure that the user could focus on the task at hand, not on deciphering complicated instructions.
- Expectations were clearly set when processes included approval from or interaction with other users.
- Tips were provided where possible to maximize the use of site tools.
In addition, I edited and re-structured the "About EPCjobs" section of the site to fit standard Web conventions and make it more compelling for press, investors, and potential users.
Help Content Mapped to Site Pages
EPCjobs.com is much like a common staffing site for the employee, but more of an internal staffing tool for the hiring managers and administrators. This means there are many processes and options for those users, and there was no adequate help content created with the original site. I created over 60 pages of help content for the site and mapped it to each page and specific user.
Additional Writing Projects
Because of the small group working on EPCjobs, flexibility was key. In addition to projects listed above, I also worked with a designer to develop content for automated site tours, edited investor presentations, and created a site style guide. I worked with two engineers to come up with standard job titles (out of thousands, creating 15) and helped the developers whenever necessary to fix content-related bugs and errors on the original QA/soft-launch site.
Camstar
Camstar sells software to all variety of companies who need to streamline and improve the manufacturing process. Clients range from Corning to Lay-Z-Boy, and the software not only synthesizes and regulates very complex systems, it also connects to business, accounting, and administrative systems. In advance of an IPO, Camstar wanted to update its messaging and website.
Targeting an Expanded Audience
The old content was geared toward software purchasers - a lower level audience who simply wanted product data. I worked closely with the marketing team to develop a new style and layout for the content of camstar.com that spoke to CxOs and industries outside Camstar's existing customer base. I also created a new section of the site, Success Stories, to highlight the ways in which Camstar's software benefitted a variety of companies. In addition, I wrote a series of pages that highlighted the benefits of Camstar's software for several different sectors the company was targeting.
Incorporating 3rd Party Content on the Quick
As the site launch approached, I was told Camstar had acquired a small consulting company, and that company's site content had to be incorporated into the new site. I worked with the Information Architect to develop a new section for this group's message, and then edited and substantially re-wrote the consulting company content to fit within the new messaging of Camstar.
Additional Tools for the Camstar Team
After completing the site project, I provided Camstar with a comprehensive style guide they could use for future site updates. It included not only specific rules related to Camstar's new style, but also tips for writing Web content and general style guidelines from the AP Style Guide.
In addition, I have written marketing pieces and Web-friendly versions of those stories as Camstar's list of impressive clients has grown.
Sun Microsystems
Sun hired the small consulting firm Niteo Partners, to create iPortal, or Inside SunOne, a developer community based on promoting SunOne technology. Niteo Partners hired me to edit the existing content and make recommendations where possible.
Web-friendly, User-specific Content
Much of the iPortal site was completed by the time Niteo Partners brought me to the project, but my role was critical: the content on the site was written by the Sun marketing team, mostly for print collateral - it hadn't been re-worked for the Web. I worked through the site article by article to improve the readability of each piece and adjust the context for the developer audience.
Extensive Recommendations
In addition to the changes I was able to make to the site before launch, I provided Sun with a list of over 50 additional recommendations related to style, consistency, and general QA.
Media Arts Group, Inc.
Media Arts Group (MAGI) manages the artwork, galleries and website of Thomas Kinkade. MAGI hired Ascension, a small consulting company, to do user research in advance of a site redesign. After the user research was completed, Ascension hired me to review the existing site and make content and architecture recommendations in light of the findings.
Focusing on Potential Customers
While Thomas Kinkade has an enormous following very familiar with his work, MAGI wanted to increase the site revenue, and it was clear that the site was confusing to the uninitiated. My recommendations included:
- Highlighting little known facts about Thomas Kinkade the personality and wherever possible adding details about his creation of various prints
- Re-organizing the art around general themes rather than Thomas Kinkade-specific themes
- Developing more recognizable themes for the gifts section of the site
- Surfacing helpful tools such as the postcard and gallery locator, which at the time were several layers deep
- Reducing the steps in the purchasing process
- Creating more sections of the site at a higher level, rather than the original layout of few sections with more than six levels of navigation
Guidelines for Web Writing
Because the group managing the site was unfamiliar with writing for the Web, I created a style guide for the site that included not only specific rules about the Thomas Kinkade site, but basic style guidelines such as how to reference bible passages and art.
At the time of my presentation, I met the site design team for the first time - they weren't told about our project. Understandably, they had ideas of their own about the site, and that team decided not to use my suggestions on architecture or content.
Dell Ventures
Dell Ventures hired Razorfish to create a tool that would improve the relationship between the firm and its companies, while also clarifying Dell Venture's capabilities and role as investors. I created a content strategy that outlined multiple means of improving communication through an Intranet Razorfish proposed, but ultimately, the project's budget was scaled back to simply a re-work of the existing dellventures.com content.
Communicating a Specific Message
At the time of this project, Dell Ventures was overwhelmed with unsolicited proposals and was understaffed. I went to Austin and worked with the Dell Ventures team to develop a very specific message: Without making investment sound impossible, make it clear that unsolicited business plans were not a means toward funding.