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| View the site |
VeriSign
Global Security Consulting
 Compare
the VeriSign Global Security Consulting home page before and after the
redesign. |
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| Background |
VeriSign's Global Security Consulting site was rudimentary
at best, badly organized, and hard to scan. |
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The Global Security Consulting group helps businesses make
their networks secure and comply with government regulations. Security and
compliance are both sources of great anxiety to potential clients. To have
confidence in VeriSign, prospects need to find concise information that
speaks to their circumstances as quickly as possible. |
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VeriSign needed to revamp its site to speak clearly and directly
to potential clients in language they understood. They also needed to get
potential clients to the information they were looking for fast —
whether it was from VeriSign's home page or from Google. |
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That was a new way of thinking for VeriSign. They also needed
a whole new content process to accomplish it. |
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| The Project |
Developed a linear process to
avoid revision cycles. I tackled developing a new process first.
Companies often don't understand that content does work. That's the only
reason it exists. When they don't have a clear notion of what the content
needs to do, they get caught in endless revision cycles trying to figure
it out. |
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I created a straightforward and linear process to avoid the
"stir until done" approach:
Define
the task.
Develop
a treatment.
Develop
content.
Review
the content.
Revise
the content.
Verify
the revisions. |
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The crucial step was developing a treatment:
It
identified the work that the content needed to do.
It
defined the approach that would do the work.
It
verified through user testing that the approach was effective. |
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Before I could develop the treatment, I had research to do
— and the stakeholders had homework. |
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Defined the strategy and objectives.
Clarified the messaging. I first helped the Global Security Consulting
group with their homework. I worked with them to make sure they could clearly
articulate their top goal — without regard to the Web site —
and their approach to achieving it. We then worked together to define their
objectives and strategy for the site. We articulated their main messages. |
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The result was that, from the beginning, everyone was able
to agreed on where we wanted to end up. |
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Created user profiles. Defined
key search phrases. Research was needed to figure out what prospective
clients wanted. |
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I worked with the stakeholders to define and profile their
top five prospective clients. I dug up real stories about the real problems
such clients faced. From those stories I was able to articulate the questions
and concerns prospective clients would come to the site seeking answers
to. I distilled the user profiles into personas.
(Example: virus attack victim
persona, PDF, 175k) |
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I worked with the stakeholders to define the key phrases
prospective clients would use in Google to search for security and compliance
consulting services. |
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Developed flows and wireframes.
Built and tested a prototype. VeriSign's homework and my research
showed that the site's content had two jobs:
Promote
VeriSign’s message
Answer
prospects’ questions |
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If we succeeded with both, VeriSign believed prospects would
become clients. |
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I developed flows that used our prospective clients' key
phrases as signage. The signage made it easy for them to locate the page
they wanted quickly. |
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I analyzed the site's content and developed a solutions matrix.
The matrix made it possible to organize the information about each solution
in exactly the same way. I then developed a page structure based on the
matrix that made scanning the page and pinpointing information effortless.
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I built a prototype and developed sample content. I got feedback
from the stakeholders and then refined the prototype. I tested the prototype
and sample content with users to verify that the approach worked. |
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Drafted, revised, and got content
approved — without needless revision cycles. Once I demonstrated
that the approach worked with real users, we were able to develop the content
for each page without getting caught in revision cycles. We'd draft a page
based on the key points outlined in the solutions matrix. The stakeholders
would review the draft and return them with feedback. We'd incorporate the
revisions, and return the revised copies to the stake holders for approval. |
