We met to get things started and the main subjects up for discussion were how we should structure the content, and how much depth of information should be included.
Should we structure it by product, product category or product features? Should we just have brief summary content linking through to detailed data sheets, or have another layer of detail in between them?
I think some people wanted to make a decision on all of this at the meeting. Thankfully we agreed to leave the decision for another time.
Decisions on structure and content can be postponed
There is no real advantage in deciding on the final structure yet. In fact, doing that could place an unnecessary restriction on us in these early stages. Instead, we are getting stuck into drafting some content and we’ll see what feels right in terms of structure and depth as we go along.
We are working in Word at the moment, rather than a content management system or database. That means it’s incredibly easy to cut and paste, change the length of content and shape the overall structure of the materials. Once everyone is agreed, we can upload content onto the system and minimal changes will be needed.
A week or two of drafting alternative versions is the next stage and as we go along the main stakeholders will have opportunities to review and comment.
At the moment nobody knows what route we’ll take and that’s fine: it’s sometimes better to let things emerge over time rather than get locked in to a fixed format too soon in the process.
