Considering content and social strategy
Elsewhere in the project, we undertook a number of readability tests to determine whether their content was written in language its audiences could understand. We found that they were writing to the level of the Harvard Law Review; far too high considering QAA’s ambitions and their overseas audiences, for whom English might not be their native tongue.
Given that best practice is writing for a reading age of 11 to 12-year olds – and studies have shown that people prefer clear, straight-forward language – it was evident that QAA’s content strategy needed rethinking.
It seemed QAA was facing a similar dilemma to that of another client of ours, the Rail Safety and Standards Board, where user understanding was getting lost within paragraphs of rigid, dense text. We helped QAA respond to our reading level findings by creating a tone of voice (TOV) and writing for the web guide.
This guide in part centred on the vocabulary used. Instead of being complex and jargon-filled, we advised that they use direct and easy-to-digest language when possible. This ensured that content was accessible and appealing to every reader, increasing the chance of revisits and an engaged audience.
As part of the content overhaul, we also established values QAA’s audience associated most keenly with their website; these included attributes like being collaborative, innovative, transparent and accountable. These characteristics were then translated into diction and voice and were cemented into QAA’s identity via the content workshops run by our practitioners.
Integrated workstyle
In a continuation of our collaborative approach, one of our designers stayed on in Gloucester throughout the summer of 2017 to build a bank of components and templates that QAA’s team could easily replicate.
Moreover, this enabled us to give QAA the skills they needed to keep creating long after this leg of our partnership was over. This was further bolstered our accessibility, design and UX workshops.
As content and SEO are integral to the overall end-user experience, we also ran a number of practical ‘writing for the web’ workshops in Gloucester (QAA team) and Glasgow (QAAS and ET team) that were geared at helping them turn detailed academic content into the consumable copy.
We used real content from their website as a reference point for exercises and lessons. Meanwhile, we also upskilled QAA staff in the likes of SEO and metadata and shared tips and guidance about keyword usage and placement with the end of boosting their rankings. To make it even easier to create with these lessons on the fly, we summed up our advice in a handy crib sheet.
We are tremendously excited about our continued collaboration with QAA. At the time of writing, their new sites are live, performing strongly and ever-evolving as their teams get to grips with their new digital capability.
We look forward to supporting them on future creative challenges and consequently, helping to ensure the quality of UK higher education around the world is safeguarded.