In 2015, health.vic.gov.au was being re-platformed from Squiz Matrix to SiteCore, and the department wanted to transform the existing content as part of the project in order to effectively communicate with its key audiences.
The old website had about 5000 pages and suffered from a large amount of out-of-date content and an unwieldy information architecture. This was due in part because of the huge number of content authors spread across the department, with very few central resources to assist or check quality.
In order to tackle the project, the department needed web content experts. Briarbird was appointed to transform around 1300 pages. As input to the project, Briarbird was given an initial content audit, proposed information architecture, style guide (which we reviewed and updated for the client), metadata criteria and accessibility checkpoints.
Briarbird was allocated three portfolios of content:
- mental health
- hospitals and health services
- public health (some sections)
Briarbird had a team of nine on this project: 2 content leads, 5 writers and 2 editors. The content process included extensive liaison with subject matter experts, development of metadata and uploading to GatherContent (an online tool that was used to track and store content before it was migrated to SiteCore).
Our approach involved:
- Auditing existing content through desktop review
- Reviewing the proposed information architecture (this was an input to our project)
- Meeting with each content owner group/subject matter expert to discuss their content needs and review/refine the proposed information architecture with them, to ensure it would resonant with their audiences
- Drafting initial content in plain English, liaising with the subject matter experts on questions and issues
- Internally QA the first draft, then send to subject matter experts for review
- Meeting with subject matter experts to go over their changes and comments
- Completing second draft, with internal QA
- Editing second draft to ensure accessibility and style guide compliance
- Uploading content to GatherContent, completing all additional metadata and module requirements.