But as with anything else, once one learns enough to appreciate the intricacies, one then moves directly into noticing the nuances of when hypertext has gone wrong. Nuances? Nay…they jump off the screen at you with all the rage of a screaming monkey.

Case in point, I was exploring an advertisement for an online account opening. Um, look it will “only take me 5 minutes” – I usually only ever have 5 minutes for anything so this works for me! – CLICK – pause, something looks wrong, now I’m on a page where its going to take 10 to 15 minutes and now I need all kinds of paperwork before I can begin! Cheated of my 5 minute nirvana I quickly hit the back button, hoping I clicked some other unseen link… – CLICK – no! To my dismay I am back to the 10 minute version, robbed of my anticipated delightful account opening experience. Saddened and feeling a bit tricked, I close the window and mosey off looking for my next 5 minute experience.

Hypertext Theory is a communications theory that defines how users will cognitively process what they see on a website. And what they see can be text, links, images, visual guides, and interactive widgets. It’s all hypertext.

“I’m a Content Strategist”. Oh…they nod knowingly as their eyes glaze over…

A Content Strategist is someone who sits at the center of User Experience, Visual Design, Technology, Business, and Editorial. 

So…what do they do?

-User Experience people are experts in human-computer interaction, they make things easy to use on websites.
-Visual designers make things pretty, and their graphic designs contribute to product branding.
-Technology teams are the ones who make it all work, they make the applications and words appear on the webpages.
-Business are the people who asked for the website and the changes in the first place.
-Editorial are the people who write first the navitoral content, and then the day to day content.

The Content Strategist works with all of these teams to take a webpage from it’s conception in UX to the final launch phase. It’s a little like herding cats.

The Content Strategist is responsible for:

- maintaining a consistent website presentation via design pattern libraries and consistency reviews.
- ensuring that the content can be implemented and managed in a cost effective manner.
- facilitating communications between all of these teams to launch new websites and new content.
- providing technical specifications and communications documentation, including annotated wire frames and design details that enable the pages to be constructed.
- validating that all of the business requirements can be met with the content delivery system.
- flag any issues to the appropriate teams for resolution.
- educating and onboarding new team members from all of these teams.
- using analytic and statistical analysis tools to measure key indicators to ensure success.

In the final analysis, everything is content from the words on the page to the HTML code. This content captures the interest of your clients, represents your branding, and helps users navigate the site to find the content you put out there for their benefit.

The role of the Content Strategist is to work with every team, in every step of the process, to ensure both a successful launch, and to ensure the website continues to meet the users needs in the future.

Rhetorical: The use of communication to persuade audiences.  This is likely the favorite of politicians, but can be seen in most cases as a tool of business.  Often we write to communicate – but do we really consider if our words are presenting our case in a persuasive manner?  Or do we expect the facts to do all of that work?  I suspect the latter.

Semiotic:  The study of signs, using nonverbal cues to enhance or interpret the communication. Often we see cases where visual cues help us to distinguish meanings – the typical men/ladies room signs are a good example. Even if we could not read the sign we could interpret the image of a man vs woman and thus make the right choice.   How many times have you viewed an icon on a website and had no idea what that icon indicated?  The current rules are to ensure you’re communicating with a number of nonverbal methods – shape, color, hover text, labels, and finally interaction.

Phenomenological:  Dialogue or experience of otherness. “Communication theorized in this way explains the interplay of identity and difference in authentic human relationships and cultivates communication practices that enable and sustain authentic relationships.” These would be the things we experience in discussions with other people with different views.  Meaning, in short, that the other guy understood what you said.  Its possible that the receiver of a communication simply didn’t understand you due to your choice of words, tone, volume, technical difficulties – so we need to know that communication does not always equal understanding.

Cybernetic: The concept that if you could define common communications and common understanding then theoretically you should be able to have discourse with machines – information processing by a set of variables that you’ve defined.”Cybernetics has plausibility as a way of theorizing communication in part because it appeals rhetorically to the commonplace assumptions of everyday materialism, functionalism, and rationalism. For cybernetics, the distinction between mind and matter is only a functional distinction like that between software and hardware.”  Life would be so much easier if we could communicate like machines!  What I put in is what I get out – assuming my input was clear.  People often mix so many other variables into what they are hearing that you can’t always be sure what you’ll get.  News is taken so differently depending on if you’ve had a bad or a good day, or for any number of emotional factors.  One can’t be sure to get the same output from the same input with people the way they can with machines.

Sociopsychological:  This theory combines different communications formats to discuss how people interact and influence each other.”Communication, in short, is the process by which individuals interact and influence each other. Communication may occur face-to-face or through technological media and may flow from one to one, one to many, or many to many, but in all formats it involves (contrary to the phenomenological view) interposed elements that mediate between individuals.”  I found sociopsychological communications seem to be very dependent upon the media they are delivered in.  A personal letter on stationary has a completely different meaning than that via email.  Instant messages or text messages seem so much more terse and unfriendly than a simple phone call.  These differences need to be understood before you send your communication – and indeed, the choice of medium may very well influence the desired outcome.

Sociocultural Tradition: This theory is defined as ‘a symbolic process that produces and reproduces shared sociocultural patterns.’ And this takes into consideration that our society is filled with symbolic codes, and many types of media (print, images, sound) and notes that these environmental influences will effect our communications. “Communication in these traditions is typically theorized as a symbolic process that produces and reproduces shared
sociocultural patterns.” One of the most important concepts is that individuals are products of their social environments – and this must be taken into consideration.  In this case one tends to call to mind high school students and the need to dress ‘cool’, however symbolic indicators reach much further then that.  The business environment has an even more restrictive code structure – you need to wear the right business suit with the proper name brand on your tie in some circles.

The Critical Traditions: This was one that I liked because its the method where you discuss something, and then ask questions that force you to view it from all angles and thus obtain a more rounded and realistic evaluation. By doing this you can challenge your known assumptions.  Learning to pull apart your own argument is a great learning experience, and personally I think it’s fun.

Learning the Seven theories of Communication this week proved to be an eye-opening topic, and one where I personally will now begin to pay more attention to the method of delivery of my work.