"Opinion Piece" was introduced in 2004. Each month an industry specialist was invited to share their view on that month's Community theme. In this Opinion Piece, Duncan Thomson asks:  Is there a formula for making popular educational content?

As a recent Webby Award winner for the BBC’s Human Body and Mind website now embarking on a new educational project, I’ve been hoping that I’d find a production formula to take with me. But whereabouts in the Gantt chart’s blend of coders, designers and writers does the secret to success lie?

I suppose that if there was a recipe for success, we’d all be using it. The fact is, every project is different and it’s a matter of playing to strengths and opportunities. So instead, it makes sense to look some of the important ingredients that worked for us along the way. 

To set the scene, our brief was to build a general interest website about the human body that worked alongside a season of TV programmes about the human mind.

The customer is always right…
The Human Body and Mind website is an informal education site aimed at an aspiring adult audience, typically 16-35 years old. With no formal driver of an exam to pass or a course to accredit, we realised that our survival in the world of web pages revolved around making content that valued user interest and satisfaction above all else. Our measure of a satisfied user was that they would recommend the link to somebody they knew.

So, what do you want then?
We kicked off the Human Body and Mind project by putting up a survey on the small existing Human Body site. As well as demographic data such as age and sex we also explored peoples’ reasons for the visit, their motivation and aspirations about what they hoped to find. The research showed that users wanted to find out about science in a fun and engaging way and they wanted to explore the human body in a hands-on way that hadn’t been effectively done on the web. This valuable research with our fledgling online audience formed the basis of our editorial vision for the core site. 

Room to manoeuvre
It’s often the case in content commissioning models that the brief is developed from an editorial position and signed-off into production. Human Body and Mind benefited from a creative commissioning approach, where the details of exactly what would be produced were made after a pilot phase with a multi-disciplined team of coders, designers and writers. Resisting the security gained from locking down the brief too early encouraged innovation and iterative development of the product.

Test early, test often…
The site was not only built around a user-centred editorial vision, but also through user-centred design. Only relatively small samples were used (typically 5 people) but testing was carried out often. Careful consideration was given to creating an intuitive interface and functionality, but effort was also put into implementing features that extended the enjoyment for the user through repeat play. Overall, we concentrated on doing less content but doing it to the highest production values.

Take your opportunities
The Human Body and Mind website was built around a season of 6 landmark science TV series over 18 months that focussed on the human mind. For each series, we concentrated on producing a small number of relevant tests and research experiments that extended programme ideas online. Typically, this involved letting the user take part in the some of the experiments that they had seen the programmes’ presenters try.
 
To achieve this, the web team worked closely with TV production to develop ideas and buy-in. Strong presenter endorsement at the end of TV programmes promoted the online content and each subsequent series stepped up the baseline traffic to the website.

The most popular experiments are those where users test their own perception, such as disgust tolerance, spotting false smiles and challenging their senses.  Taking part in genuine science research also proved to be highly motivating and vast amounts of data has been generated for academics.

What do I take with me?
In many senses Human Body and Mind was a great project waiting to happen. With a good budget to create content and a succession of TV programmes to drive interest to the site, the raw materials were of an extremely high quality; it was never a project that was in danger of failure.

But where we achieved success was by making it relevant. We knew our audience and we valued their motivation. Perhaps this isn’t such a bad place to start all educational projects, even those that have a bunch of learning outcomes at the top of the list. A product that covers a quarter of the learning outcomes but is used ten times as much, because it is so enjoyable, is a winner every time.

Duncan Thomson is the former content producer at bbc.co.uk Science and Nature, and now senior content producer on the BBC's Digital Curriculum project