Questions We’ll Ask, III

Or: How Information Architecture, Content Strategy, and (Nonfiction) Manuscript Editing Employ Pretty Much the Same Skill Set:

1. Is this information in the best possible place?

1a. If not, why not? Was it delivered too soon? Introduced too late? Would it be distracting / irrelevant / discordant regardless of where it was placed?

1b. Say it IS in the right place…is it so great / important / critical to our mission that it bears repeating (i.e. placed *again* elsewhere)?

2. Who’s reading this?

2a. What are their expectations?

2b. How do we benefit from meeting those expectations?

2c. What would we gain, if anything, by subverting them?

3. Are these sentences earning their keep? Or should we swap out this 500-word description for the 75-word version?

4. Where are the cliffhangers?

5. Is this information / reading experience available elsewhere?

5a. If yes, should we acknowledge this, and join metaphorical hands with the competition (be it through links, bibliographies, or other references)?

5b. If not, how does this reading experience become more itself?

We realize “itself” might seem a strange word choice there. But we’re sticking with it.