Plan


Planning for consistency

http://www.flickr.com/photos/happykampics/3254582371/
Image of group

As you discuss the goals and content of the website with the other stakeholders, you will likely discover that there are many different views on what content should be contained on the site and how it should be organized. Once your identified content creators start writing the text of the website, the differences in ideas, approach, and voice will be even more obvious.

 

Think about how you will handle the different writing styles when it is time to put the content up on the web site. Is it acceptable for your site to have multiple views and voices? Will you identify the different contributors to give a face to the different sections of content? Or, is it more appropriate for your site to have a consistent tone and voice? You may want to designate the role of "copy editor" to one or more stakeholders to help edit the stakeholder contributions so they have a consistent voice.

 

Remember, it is much better to identify and address these questions at the beginning of the website creation process, when you have time to make "course corrections" than to ignore these potential issues until the end of the process, when time will be short and all the content will have been already created.