Author: Michael Andrews

Categories
Content Engineering

Designing Multi-Purpose Content

Publishers can do more with content when content is able to serve more than one purpose.  This post will provide a short introduction to how to structure content so that it’s multi-purpose. 

First let’s define what multi purpose means. Multi-purpose refers to when core information supports more than one content type. A content type is the structure of content relating to a specific purpose.  Each content type should have a distinct structure reflecting its unique purpose. But often certain essential information may be relevant to different content types. A simple example would be a company address.  The address is a content element used in many different content types such as an “About Us” profile or an event announcement about a meetup hosted by the company.  The same content element can be used in different content types. The address is a multi-purpose content element.

Scenarios where purposes overlap

Publishers have many opportunities to use the same content for different purposes. Another simple scenario can show us how this would work.

Imagine a company is about to release a new product to the market. The product is currently in beta.  The company wants to build awareness of the forthcoming product. There are three audience segments who are interested in the product:

  1. Existing customers of the company
  2. People who follow the sector the company is in, such as journalists, industry analysts, or Wall Street analysts
  3. People who are not current customers of the company but who may be interested in knowing about the company’s future plans

All these groups might be interested in information about the new product.  But each of these three groups has a slightly different reason for being interested in the information.  Even though they will all want to see mostly the same content, they each want to see something different as well.  By breaking content into components, we can separate which audience purposes are identical, and which are similar but different.  

Modeling commonalities 

One use of a content model is to indicate what information is delivered to which audience segment. For some aspects of a topic, audiences will see the same information, while for other aspects different audience segments see information that is specific to them.   

A close relationship exists between the segment for whom the content is designed, and the content type which represents the purpose of the content.   A prospective buyer of a product is probably not interested in a troubleshooting page, but an owner of the product might be.  

Even when different audience segments gravitate toward different content types, they may still share common interests and be seeking some of the same information.  

Different audience segments may have different reasons for being interested in the same basic information.  They may need to see slightly different versions because of their differences in their motivations, which could influence messages framing the significant of the information to the audience segment, and differences in the actions they may wan to take.  

Content teams can plan around what different audience segments want to do after reading the content. 

In  our example, the same basic content about the forthcoming product release can be used in three different content types. They can be used in a customer announcement, in a press release, and in a blog post. The descriptive body of each of these will be the same, conveying basic information about the forthcoming product.  

Three different content types drawing on a common, multi-purpose content element

Identifying motivations and managing these as components

When designing content, content teams should have a clear idea who is interested in this information and why.

In our example, the content presented to each segment has a different call-to-action at the end of the body. The customer announcement will include a sign-up call-to-action so that customers can try out the beta version. The press release would include a point of contact, which would provide a name, an email and a telephone number that journalist and others could reach.  The blog post wouldn’t include an active call-to-action, but it might embed social media discussion on Twitter concerning the forthcoming product release — perhaps tweets from beta customers crowing about how marvelous the new product is.  

The motivations of each audience segment can also be managed with distinct content elements in the content model.  Content teams can use content elements to plan and manage specific actions or considerations pertaining to different audience segments.

Thinking about purpose globally

Content teams tend to plan content around tasks. But when content is planned individually to support individual tasks, content teams can miss the opportunity to design the content more efficiently and effectively.  They may create content that addresses a specific audience segment and specific task.  But they’ve created single-purpose content that is difficult to manage and optimize.  

Tasks and information are related but not always tightly coupled.  Different audience segments may have common tasks, even though the information they need to support those tasks could vary in coverage or detail.  In such cases, why different segments are interested in a task could be different, or else their level of knowledge or interest could be different.  The instructions describing how to complete task could be global, but the supporting background content would be unique for different audience segments.  

Conversely, different audience segments may rely on the same information to support different tasks, as in our example.  

Content teams have an opportunity to plan the design of content using a common content model, built around common components that could descriptions, explanations, or actions.    A key aspect of designing multi-purpose content is to separate what information everyone is interested in from information that only certain segments are interested in.  Content will need to adjust to different audience segments depending on the motivations of a segment, and the opportunity the segment offers the organization publishing the content.

The design of content should consider two dimensions affecting multi-purpose content elements:

  1.  What brings these readers to view the content?  (The framing of elements that define the content type where information appears) 
  2.  What do these readers want to do next?  (The framing of the call-to-action or task instructions)

When the answers to those questions are specific to a segment, they will be unique element within the content type.  When several segments share common motivations, the component they view will be the same.

In summary, the same content can be useful to different audiences and in different situations.   Multi-purpose content can be considered the flip-side of personalization. We can separate what everyone needs to know (the multi-purpose part) from what only some people need to know (custom-purpose part).  To design multi-purpose content, one is looking for common elements to share with different segments. In personalization one is looking for specific elements targeted at specific segments.  The design of multi-purpose content considers in close detail what different segments need or want to view, and why.

— Michael Andrews 

Categories
Storytelling

Getting to know Indian English

As I prepare to leave India after nearly three years here, I’m reflecting on the many things that make India special.  The role of language, especially the use of English, is one of them.

More than a hundred million Indians speak English to some degree.  Yet surprisingly little has been written about Indian English.  Indian English is a distinct dialect of English. In theory, English speakers in India follow British English as specified in the Oxford or Longman English dictionaries.  In practice, Indians use many words and phrases that don’t exist in British or American English.

Indian English seems to lack its own identity, unlike the English in countries such as New Zealand, which has a population the size of a medium size Indian city.  When I lived in New Zealand, I was able to buy an Oxford Dictionary of New Zealand English that contained a handful of special kiwi words such as jandals (India’s favorite kind of footwear.)  But there’s no dictionary of Indian English, even though there are hundreds or even thousands of words and phrases that are unique, or have unique meaning, in Indian English. 

English has a unique role in India.  It is not one of the 22 “scheduled” languages that are constitutionally recognized and supported. (“Scheduled” as a specific meaning in Indian English: acts of national government have schedules.)  Yet English is an official language of government.  While it is the first language of a small minority of people, it is often is a second or third language that people learn in school.  It is a national language but culturally, a foreign language.  Perhaps that is why Indians feel it less important to codify Indian English, while the Canadians may want to define the distinct features of Canadian English, or the Australians or the Irish want to do so with their dialects. 

Indian English as Global English

Indian English is a growing presence within global English. If you doubt that, consider IBM.  IBM is headquartered in the United States, and considered an American company.  But IBM has more employees in India than in the US or any other country.  That pattern is increasingly true for many multinationals.  Their employees in India outnumber employees elsewhere.

 Today, most speakers of English throughout the world are not native speakers.  And India is on course to become the country with the largest population, and possibly, the country with the most English speakers.  All of us should become familiar with features of Indian English.  We will likely encounter them sooner or later.  

“India now claims to be the world’s second-largest English-speaking country. The most reliable estimate is around 10% of its population or 125 million people, second only to the US and expected to quadruple in the next decade.”

— BBC

Features of Indian English

Three features of Indian English stand out to me.  First, one hears (or even more often, reads) usage that seems archaic compared with contemporary American or British English.  For example, an office within a high rise building may be referred to as a cabin, while customer demand is referred to patronage.  

Footfall is increasing after peaking in the late 1800s

The second feature is the use of Hindi words within English.  This is known as “Hinglish” — India’s equivalent of the “Singlish” spoken in Singapore.  In some parts of India people speak or write in Hindi sentences sprinkled with a few English words.  In other regions, or in print, the core sentence is in English with a few Hindi words or phrases included. Either way, the meaning is not obvious unless one understands the Hindi references.  

Mixing vocabulary is a common occurrence in many languages.  The French borrow English words, and vice versa.  One would expect Indian English to incorporate Hindi words.  Even British and American English have incorporated a number of Indic words, including such favorites as pajamas, juggernaut, and thug.   (For the linguistically curious, there’s also something called Indian French, spoken by a few thousand people in former French territories in India, that incorporates various words from different languages into French.)  

New words and meanings

The third feature of Indian English — by far the most interesting — is the invention of new words or meanings.  For example, Indian oil companies may refer to petrol or gasoline as “motor spirits.”  A plastic surgery clinic may refer to hair loss as “hairfall”– as though it were snowfall.  

Indian English may even be trendsetting

There are a handful of words that routinely appear in the workplace that are worth learning.    

  • Do the needful (do what is required, or take care of it): “The customer has a complaint. Do the needful.”
  • Updation (for updating or revision):  “Please await updation of the forms.”
  • Doubt (for question): “Do you have any doubts about what I’ve said?”
  • Upgradation (for enhancement): “The airport is undergoing upgradation.”
  • Felicitate/Felicitation (to publicly recognize): “We’d like to felicitate our guest speaker.  I’d like to ask Sri Devi join us on stage for the facilitation.”
  • Interaction (for discussion):  “The eminent scientist had an interaction with the students.”
  • Revert (for reply):  “Read the attached email and revert to me.”
  • Prepone (to schedule earlier):  “Let’s prepone the meeting for tomorrow morning.”

Concepts trump words

Sign in the mall last weekend

Even when words in Indian English seem to deviate from conventional usage, they often have a certain logic to them, if considered as the expression of a concept.  English is full of words that have acquired specific connotations that are strange when examined.  And word formations, especially the attachment of suffixes, are often idiosyncratic.  

I hope Indian English gains more recognition.  Maybe Oxford can create a dictionary of Indian English.  

— Michael Andrews