{"id":7284,"date":"2018-04-10T11:22:35","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T15:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterprise-knowledge.com\/?p=7284"},"modified":"2018-04-10T13:17:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T17:17:05","slug":"improving-findability-using-content-deconstruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterprise-knowledge.com\/improving-findability-using-content-deconstruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Findability using Content Deconstruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

At EK, one of our core tenets when considering content strategy, content architecture, and broader content management is the definition of \u201cchewable chunks\u201d of content. Our approach is to break content into smaller, more manageable pieces both for easier management as well as improved findability and usability. \u00a0We refer to this process as \u201ccontent deconstruction\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The wide use of Microsoft Office has made it easy to create long, voluminous documents that can be stored as a PDF and published to your site. But think about how that document would be surfaced on your website or intranet. As an example, let\u2019s take a document which is very common in all organizations – the employee handbook. Our EK handbook is 46 pages, and we\u2019re not a large company.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s suppose I\u2019m interested in finding out more information about EK\u2019s tuition assistance program – hmm, <\/span>nice perk<\/span><\/a>! My first step would be to search our intranet for a keyword like \u201ctuition\u201d. As expected, one of the top hits (if the relevance of the search results is tuned correctly) is the handbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

The link in the results page opens the PDF, but not at a location that reinforces my search. I\u2019m sitting and staring at the cover page of the handbook. Unfortunately, there\u2019s nothing about tuition on the cover page. Therefore, I must either page down to the table of contents looking for information on tuition or do a find for \u201ctuition\u201d in the document until I get to the relevant section.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our recommended approach would leverage your existing content management system to deconstruct the handbook into a series of smaller, more manageable records as opposed to a single lengthy document. Instead of surfacing the whole document, I now have the ability to display the individual sections on their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

With these smaller, individual sections of content, I could apply tags – \u201ctuition,\u201d \u201cprofessional development\u201d – in a more granular, directed manner. Further, the links on my search results page will now take me directly to the relevant section of the handbook – \u201cTuition and Training Assistance\u201d instead of opening a PDF. Finally, I have created a series of content that can be used similarly to Google\u2019s featured snippets – blocks of relevant content that appear at the top of the search results page.<\/span><\/p>\n

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At EK, we recommend looking for several key characteristics to identify candidate documents for deconstruction. Characteristics to consider are:<\/span><\/p>\n