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Thoughts from Blend Interactive
One of Blend’s core values is a dedication to advocacy and progress — to expand upon and give back to the community that fuels us. This is where those thoughts live.
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Chapter 3: Form Your Project Team Off-site link
Web projects are shaped by the people involved in decision-making. You can help prevent latestage rework by making sure the right people are in the room from the beginning.
Chapter 2: Set Your Expectations Off-site link
What does it mean to get started on this project? Let’s set a scope for what this project will include, as well as give some thought to what “success” means – and your realistic chances of achieving it.
Chapter 1: Know the Scope of the Project Off-site link
So, we need a new website? The easy question is, “Now what?” The harder question is, “How did we get here?” Gain buy-in on the reasons behind a new project, define the problem in a way that gains traction, and avoid some early red flags along the way.
Understanding Customers: Data, Journeys and Insights
In advance of Now What? Workshops, we’re featuring short interviews with our smart and wonderful workshop speakers. This week, we talk to Jon Crowley about analytics and metrics — and how to use metrics to make better content decisions.
The Web of Questions
Our web is a complicated web, because people are complicated beings. So we depend on asking questions – for clarity, yes, but also for education and inclusion.
Clarifying our Vocabulary: The Words We Use Off-site link
The chasm of understanding between consultant and client is a dangerous hurdle. Our job as content experts is to understand that, despite the promises and assurances we make in terms of a client’s content, our own explanations and processes are tangled, weirdly worded, and sometimes impossible to decipher.
Empathy and Content Strategy: on Teaching, Listening and Affecting Change Off-site link
Content strategy practitioners – and, really, the entire UX umbrella – serve a unique role in the life of a web property, in that we act as an advocate for people we may never know. But there’s another element of this process that can often be overlooked, and it’s the audience we know and understand and work with on a daily basis: the client.
Audiences, Outcomes, and Determining User Needs
Every website needs an audience. And every audience needs a goal. Advocating for end-user needs is the very foundation of the user experience disciplines. Corey Vilhauer explains the threads that bind UX research to content strategy and project deliverables that deliver.
Building Confidence: The Hidden Content Deliverable Off-site link
When we sign a contract for content work – whether it’s working with a client as a consultant or accepting a position within a large company – we do so with the expectation of deliverables. But what if the biggest deliverable is simply to help clients understand what they're expected to manage in the first place?
Turning Card Sort Lemons into Content Strategy Lemonade Off-site link
If there’s one skill that is too often overlooked in the web strategy industry, it’s the act of continuing to find useful information in what seems to be rubbish data.
Beyond Blend.
Blend doesn’t just write here: we also write books, create videos, and dive deep into our individual disciplines. Check out some of our external sources of knowledge.
The Web Project Guide
A phase-by-phase look at the web design and development process, providing context to each step.
Coding with Bob
A YouTube series by our director of development, focusing on .NET coding and Optimizely development.
Eating Elephant
A blog about content strategy, information architecture, and understanding user needs.