I just received word that my proposal for a session for the IA Summit 2006 has been accepted. Yippie! Last time I presented at the Summit was when Peter and I both talked about re-architecting PeopleSoft.com (ZIP: 1.6 MB) in Baltimore in 2002.
I'll be talking about content analysis, how to do it, and also how to teach it to a non-IA. We've done a number of projects here at AP where the client has wanted to do the content audit and analysis themselves. It's a place where they see they could save some money since it is time consuming. It's also a great way to get someone on the client team to be intimately familiar with the site.
The problem comes when you go to merge their content analysis (often taking the form of a content map) into say, a mental model diagram. Sometimes it works great. Sometimes it's not so great. I've been working on what I can do to help mentor and teach the client the skills so they can make a content map and do analysis that we can build on for the rest of the project. That's what my talk will be about.