WorkingNYC

Develop content strategy and content design for a new City website connecting New Yorkers to job training and adult education.

Services

• Information architecture
• User research
• Editorial workflow and governance 
• Style guidelines
• UX writing
• Copywriting 
• Plain language 
• Accessibility 

Background

NYC funds and administers a career-focused programs through many different agencies. To find and enroll in the right programs, New Yorkers visit different websites, decipher information in different styles and formats, and complete the sometimes difficult task of figuring out the next steps.

My team partnered with the Mayor’s Office for Workforce Development to create a user-centered front door to this wide range of programs. We worked quickly and nimbly to help New Yorkers connect to opportunities, help agencies find the right clients, and help the City respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

What I did

Information architecture

To approach the primary content type, the program page, I analyzed an existing list of programs and broke them out into common and unique elements. Once we outlined the various components of a program, we defined content types, including structured taxonomies to easily reuse content and allow users to filter through categories. We also organized and prioritized the different components according to user needs.

User research

The project had two main groups of stakeholders, New Yorkers seeking training opportunities and agencies who administer them. For the latter group, I worked with our partners to organize a series of meetings to present our ideas and solicit feedback on early prototypes. We also developed a survey to learn from a larger set of agencies and organizations.

To test with New Yorkers, my team organized virtual user testing sessions with those who had previously, participated in this kind of program, including English language learners and young adults with autism spectrum disorder. I led a card sorting activity to test our taxonomies and seek out the words we should use on the site.

Content governance

Because our partners, the owners of the content, had no dedicated content role on their team, I designed a process to allow them easily create and maintain consistent, accurate, and user-friendly information with input and sign-off from experts.

I developed and trained our partners on style guidelines; templates on the content management tool, GatherContent; criteria documentation; forms to gather information from agencies; and other tools to collaboratively bring content to production.

UX writing and copywriting

User interface copy (buttons, headers, and so on), the About page, plain language program names, and more.

Results

We launched V1 of the site in mid-August 2020 with 31 City-administered programs. While we have yet to quantitatively determine the success of the new product—measured by visits to partner websites to learn more and apply and, hopefully, data on changes in enrollment from partners—feedback from agency partners and New Yorkers has so far been positive.