Content Audit for the Assessment of Digital Information Space:
Definitions and Exploratory Typology
I. Sperano
École normale supérieure de Lyon
France
isabelle.sperano@ens-lyon.fr
Research Paper
ABSTRACT1
Content audit is an evaluation method used to identify,
describe, quantify, and assess content quality of a website or of a
larger information ecosystem (social media, web application,
newsletter, intranet, etc.). Despite the growing popularity of the
method in the last years, very little research has been conducted
on this topic. However, it is extensively described and
commented in a large body of literature, mostly written by
information architecture (IA), content strategy and UX
professionals. Hence, this is what led to further examine, in this
research, a corpus of 200 publications (books, web pages, blog
articles, journal articles) addressing content audit. This study
attempts to take stock and establish a realistic picture of the
current knowledge about the method, particularly concerning
content audit definition components and content audit types, as
well as to suggest possible means to further develop this
evaluation method.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Human-centered computing → Human computer
interaction (HCI) → HCI design and evaluation methods
→ Heuristic evaluations
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SIGDOC '17, August 11–13, 2017, Halifax, NS, Canada
© 2017 Association for Computing Machinery.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5160-7/17/08…$15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3121113.3121227
KEYWORDS
Content audit, Digital Information Space, Content Assessment,
Information Architecture, Typology.
ACM Reference format:
I. Sperano 2017. SIG Proceedings Paper in word Format. In
Proceedings of ACM SIGDOC conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia
CANADA, August 2017 (SIGDOC 2017), 10 pages.
DOI: 10.1145/3121113.3121227
1 INTRODUCTION
Evaluation of digital contents and information structures
consists of assessing their quality and their ease of use. It has
several objectives: identifying opportunities to improve a
website, validating an existing structure, maximizing the profits
of an organization, facilitating the search for information, etc.
[1]. It may also support decisions such as choosing between two
proposals or justifying the value of an investment (website
redesign, changes in the editorial process, etc.). Similarly,
evaluation is a valuable valid tool when it comes to allocating
budgets to a project or justifying the creation of a new position
within an organization, for instance [1]. To do so, different
methods of evaluation are used, like user tests, heuristic
evaluation, card sorting, etc. Content audit is one of them.
Content audit is an evaluation method used to identify,
describe, quantify, and assess content quality of a website or of a
larger information ecosystem (social media, web application,
newsletter, intranet, etc.) [2]–[4]. This detailed analysis supports
practitioners (mostly in information architecture and content
strategy) detecting information-related problems such as content
redundancy, poor editorial quality or structural weaknesses [3],
[5]. It also reveals the scale of the issues to be solved. When done
properly and rigorously, content audits can become an essential
tool for the assessment of an information space [6], [7]. Not only
does it allow the identification of every content component and
highlight content strengths and weaknesses [8], but it also serves
as a foundation for discussion between the various people
SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA
responsible for establishing and maintaining a digital
information ecosystem. It does so by establishing a common
terminology between members of the work team [9].
Despite the growing popularity of the method in the last
years, very little research seems to have been conducted on this
topic. Opening the way for research on content audit requires
first to take stock of knowledge and practices related to this
method. This is what led us to inventory and formalize current
practices, and to establish the fundamental knowledge base
related to content audit. It constitutes our entry point towards
the study of this method. This paper aims to present an in-depth
examination of content audit as a digital ecosystem assessment
method.
One of the major objectives of this paper is to define content
audit. It is meant to take a further look at the method, at its
experts, and particularly at its definitions and at its different
types2.
2 METHODOLOGY
Every discipline has its collection of knowledge included
within its practice. This knowledge is certainly reflected in
designed artefacts and products, but also in books, and articles
addressing these topics [10]. Although content audit has not
really been looked at from a research perspective until now, it is
extensively described and commented on in a large body of
literature. This constitutes a potentially fertile ground to engage
deep reflection and a rigorous discussion about the method.
Moreover, such literature seems to occupy a prominent
position in the IA, content strategy and UX community, and to
exert a significant influence on the professional practice. Indeed,
Burford [11] studied IA professionals. In her study, she observed
IA professionals adopt several strategies to acquire knowledge in
their field. Reading dedicated literature is an important one.
For these reasons, the data was collected by an extensive
literature search about content audit, resulting in a corpus of
related publications that was then analyzed. This methodological
strategy appeared as a relevant first step towards the
formalization of current knowledge about the content audit
method. Thus, this kind of methodological strategy may enable
the depiction of a representative and realistic picture of the body
of knowledge published about the content audit method.
2These results are part of a larger study conducted about content audit where other
dimensions of the method have been analyzed (audit activities, criteria, auditor’s
expertise, etc.).
2
I. Sperano
2.1 Setting the Corpus
The first step of this methodological approach is to set up a
corpus of publications, which will constitute the disciplinary
knowledge base to code and analyze.
Selecting Publications
Because content audit has rarely been a subject of research, it
seemed necessary to embrace the whole discourse about this
method, requesting to select a large number of publications.
Books were the first document type to be included in the
corpus. Knowledge about content audit has been developed not
only through more traditional media like books, but also by less
formal modes of diffusion such as blogs and other web
publications. This is what led to extend the field of investigation
to web documents of varied types. In contrast, journal articles
and conference proceedings addressing content audit was added
to include the research knowledge and perspectives in the
panorama. Thus, the identification of documents extends to
three types of publications:
• Book or chapter
• Web document (blog articles, web page, etc.)
• Journal article or conference proceeding
In order to identify books to integrate in the corpus, a
keyword search was conducted on popular online bookstores, as
well as in library catalogues. A search for keywords such as
content audit, content inventory, and content matrix, both in
French3 and in English was conducted. The selection of web
documents posed a certain challenge much less present with
books: credibility of authors. As it is commonly known, almost
anyone can publish content on the web. It was feared that a
search of web publications from major search engines would
lead to publications of too variable and uncertain quality. A
different means of selection was chosen. It was decided to use
references cited in the book corpus as a base for the web
documents search. Thus, the web document selection began by
identifying those cited in the book corpus. Then, by following an
iterative approach, newly added web publications were explored
for other relevant documents until saturation (i.e. until no new
document was identified). Five iterations were conducted before
reaching a saturation of the corpus. Finally, journal articles and
conference proceedings were identified using article database.
Corpus’s Composition
This process led to select a total of 200 publications. The
corpus is composed as follows:
• 117 books or chapters
3 The native language of the researcher is French.
Content Audit for the Assessment of Digital Information Space:
SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Definitions and Typology

• 105 books conducted. A first wave of coding allowed the identification of

• 12 chapters (from 3 different books)
• 77 web documents
• 49 blog articles
• 26 web pages
• 2 downloadable documents
• 6 journal articles/conference proceedings
The composition of the corpus is already a telling result as to
the origin of the main discourse about content audit. Indeed, the
fact that only six journal articles or conference proceedings
could be identified suggests that the discourse on content audit
is rarely the result of scientific research, as it was suggested
earlier in the paper.
basic analysis units related to definitional characteristics of
content audit. Taking an inductive approach, a second wave of
coding allowed the discovery of subcategories, sub-themes,
adopted with regard to the different analysis unit first
questioned. The large number of collected documents required
the use of specialized software for compiling, coding, and
analysis of the data collected [12]. To do so, the software QDA
Miner was used.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
An overview of the corpus is first exposed. Then the different
definitional components related to content audit are presented.

Publication’s Designation
3.1 Overview of the Corpus
Every publication has been appointed a precise designation
following these nomenclature rules: A Relatively New Method
• First 3 letters of the author’s last name (e.g. ALL). The publication year of the documents was first identified
• Last 2 digits of the year of publication (e.g. 11). (see Figure 1). Considering such variable gives cues regarding
• Type of publication (e.g. W). the emergence of the method.
• O: Book
• C: Chapter
• W: Web Document
• A: Journal article/conference proceedings

For example:
Complete reference. Allen, R. (2011). ROT: The Low-Hanging
Fruit of Content Analysis. Meet Content. Retrieved at
http://meetcontent.com/blog/rot-the-low-hanging-fruit-of-
content-analysis/
Designation: ALL11W

2.2 Coding and Analyzing the Data

This study uses a mixed method research approach, that is, Figure 1—Number of Publications Per Year
the analysis is both qualitative and quantitative.

First, these variables about each publication were
documented:
• Type of document (e.g. Book)
• Year of publication (e.g. 2014)
• Title of publication (e.g. The language of content
strategy)
• Country of origin (e.g. United States)
• Authors (e.g. Abel, Scott)
Then, an exploratory data analysis was conducted to get an
overall picture of content audit. Hence, a coding activity was
As shown in the figure, content audit seems to be a relatively
recent method. If some publications address content audit before
the 2000s, it is not until 2010 that a rise in the number of
publications is observed. The oldest element of the corpus is
from 1996. This document, ALL96O, is about Director (a CD-
ROM software) and Lingo programming.
An American Point of View
Both the language and the origin of the publications (country
where the document was published) were looked upon (see
Figure 2).
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SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA I. Sperano

Figure 3—Author’s Areas of Expertise

Figure 2—Number of Publications Based on Their Country
of Origin
From the outset, one can see that a large number of expertise
is identified. Despite the large number of claimed expertise, some
As presented in the figure, the vast majority of the appear clearly more popular. Figure 4 shows in more detail the
publications comes from the United States. Although this data most popular types of expertise.
cannot substitute for the real origin of the authors, this result
still leads to believe that the current point of view about content
audit is likely to have a strong American dominance. Moreover,
these documents are mostly written in English (196 publications,
98% of publications).4 Other publications (4 publications, 2% of
publications) are in French and come from France. However,
since this study has only been conducted on documents written
in English and in French, we cannot attest that bodies of
literature in other languages are non-existent.

A Wide Range of Expertise

For each publication, the expertise claimed by the authors
was identified in order to better understand the method’s
context of use and areas of expertise which make use of it 5. Of
the 197 different authors identified in the corpus, it was possible
to obtain information on about 188 of them. A total of 208
different expertise have been identified. This high number is
partly due to the fact that almost all authors claim to have more
than one expertise. Figure 3 presents the most frequently
identified areas of expertise (claimed by more than two authors). Figure 4–Most Popular Authors’ Areas of Expertise

User experience (20.2% of authors), content strategy (19.1% of

authors) and information architecture (12.2% of authors) are the
three most claimed fields of expertise.

3.2 Defining Content Audit

4The Canadian and German publications are also written in English.
5To do so, the author’s description in the publication itself was used. If the
document did not include an author’s description, the data was found elsewhere
such as the publisher’s website, the author’s personal site or LinkedIn page, etc.
In this section, a panorama of the definitional elements
related to content audit is presented. A total of 129 publications
(64.5% of publications) explicitly describe the method. Table 1
presents a representative sample of definitions identified in our
corpus.

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Content Audit for the Assessment of Digital Information Space:
SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Definitions and Typology

Publications Definition LEW12O A content inventory answers the question: What

BRO06O A list of all the information contained in a web-
site, along with data that describes the
information from several points of view, like
target audience or location.
DET12W A content audit is an assessment of a website’s
content from both a quantitative perspective (i.e.,
“How much content is there?”) and a qualitative
one (i.e., “Is the content any good?”).
HAL12O An audit is an accounting of all currently
published web content, with all the details
recorded on a spreadsheet.
LYO12O
JON09W Ultimately, a content inventory results in a
detailed spreadsheet that, at a minimum, lists the
existing content.
NICW
KAD12O The content audit is an assessment, or inventory,
of all the existing content on a website.
do we have to work with? It includes a detailed
list of all documents (white papers, presentations,
product manuals, etc.), video and audio assets, and
images related to your business. This analysis
serves as a quantitative measure of what you
have.
A content audit, on the other hand, is an analysis
of the information assets you have. It is the
assessment of that content and an evaluation of
its importance and relevance with the
surrounding messaging. The content audit will
answer the question: Is this any good?
This is a review of the content (copy, imagery,
videos, audio) and its organization in an existing
product, or content created for a new product.
A Content Inventory captures the content within
an organization and its publication channel(s). It
frames the current-state content scope and may
be referred to as a quantitative audit.

LAN14O A content inventory is a quantitative assessment
of all the content on a website–a list of all the
pages, images, and other files that make up the
content set as well as data associated with those
files, such as content type and metadata.
A content audit is a qualitative evaluation of a set
of content. When you audit content, you assess it
against a variety of measures depending on your
context and goals.
A Content Audit leverages the inventory to
provide an assessment of the content and its
quality.
WIKW-1 A content inventory is the process and the result
of cataloguing the entire contents of a website. An
allied practice — a content audit — is the process
of evaluating that content.
WOD09O A content inventory is a tally of everything that
exists on the site and everything you expect to be
added to the site.
YUN02O A content audit is simply a thorough analysis of
all content—text and graphics—on your website
with an eye on what should or should not be
localized.

Table 1—Content Audit Definitions

The most frequently noted definitional element is: a list, an

inventory of the content. In the table above, all the
definitional elements refer to the creation of such a list. The
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SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA I. Sperano

concept of content evaluation also appears in the content audit Audit types Number of publications,
definitions [LEW12O, DET12W, KAD12O, LAN14O, LEW12O, % of publications
NICW, WIKW-1]. In addition, the use of criteria, of measures (n=200)
to assess content is frequently explicitly stated [LAN14O,] or
Facet
implied [BRO06O, HAL12O].
Quantitative Audit 13 (6.5 %)
It can be noted that some definitions address the area of Qualitative Audit 13 (6.5 %)
investigation of the content audit. Multiple definitions Multidimensional Audit 3 (1.5 %)
restrict the scope of the content audit to websites [BRO06O,
Good Practice Audit 2 (1%)
KAD12O, WOD09O, HAL12O, DET12W, LAN14O, WIKW-1,
YUN02O]. However, a few state that the scope of the audit can Strategy Audit 2 (1%)
be extended beyond the website and consider the contents of ROT Audit 1 (0.5 %)
other information channels [LEW12O, NICW]. (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial)
Audit CLOUT 1 (0.5%)
Some definitions distinguish content audit and content
Legal Audit 1 (0.5%)
inventory [LAN14O, LEW12O, NICW]. Among those that
distinguish them, there seems to be a tendency to say that Internationalisation Audit 1 (0.5 %)
content inventory is mainly quantitative and content audit Efficacy Audit 1 (0.5 %)
mainly qualitative [LAN14O, NICW]. Visual Audit 1 (0.5%)

With regard to the nature of the content, it can be both Area of Investigation
textual and graphic formats [LAN14O, LYO12O, YUN02O,
Competition Audit 3 (1.5%)
LEW12O]. If most publications indicate that the audit focuses on
the current content, some add that content to add should also Mobile Audit 1 (0.5 %)
be considered in the content audit [WOD09O]. It is interesting to Multichannel Audit 1 (0.5 %)
note that it is sometimes described both as a process and as a Community Audit 1 (0.5%)
result [WIKW-1]. Indeed, the result of a content audit process,
according to [WIKW-1], would also be called a content audit. Content Scope
Full Audit 6 (3%)
Content mapping 4 (2%)
3.3 Content Audit Types First-Level Audit 3 (1.5%)
It was noticed that content audit can be divided in different Key-Content Audit 3 (1.5%)
types. Indeed, 36 publications (18% of publications) of the corpus
Content Sampling Audit 3 (1.5%)
distinguished content audit types. A total of 23 content audit
types were identified (see Table 2). However, while analyzing the Section Audit 1 (0.5%)
results, it was noticed that the different audit types found did not
Number of Criteria
seem to stand on equal footing. A simple inventory of every
audit type may have been useful, but seemed incomplete. It was Brief Audit 2 (1%)
therefore decided to thematically group audit types to facilitate
Moment of Realization
understanding, as well as to gain better insights from these
results. The grouping is organized according to 5 dimensions: Rolling Audit 10 (5%)
facet, area of intervention, content scope, number of criteria and
moment of realization of the method. Dimensions have been
Table 2—Content Audit Types
determined according to the most preeminent characteristics of
the audit types identified.
The determination of a type of audit will vary depending on
the objectives to be achieved through the audit of content, as
WAC13W says:
[y]ou could audit content for all kinds of things,
depending on what you want to learn and be able
to do with the information. [WAC13W]
6
Content Audit for the Assessment of Digital Information Space:
Definitions and Typology
In the same way, BRO06O says:
[…] the exact nature of your content inventory
depends entirely on its purpose and how you
intend to use it. [BRO06O]
Here is a description of each category and of the most
interesting audit types:
Facet
In the first category, content audit types are related to an
aspect of the content to be examined, which has an effect on the
criteria to select. The two most widely raised content audits from
this category are Quantitative Audit (13 publications, 6,5%) and
Qualitative Audit (13 publications, 6,5%).
In the first one, the auditor focuses on easily identifiable and
measurable criteria (e.g. “page title”, “URL”).
[A] basic list of the content on your site,
including URLs, page titles and downloadable
documents. This is really an inventory of the
content on your site. [LEI10W]
The main goal of this type of audit is :
to discover what content already exists. [KIS11O]
Some, like HAL12O, note that such auditing could be
automated using specialized software.
In the second one, the auditor selects criteria defining the
quality of content elements (e.g. readability, relevance). This
type of audit requires a greater level of reflection and judgment
on the part of the auditor. Its goal is to assess the quality of the
content and not the amount of content, as it was the case for the
quantitative audit. As LEI11W-1 states:
[A]n in-depth dive into the content — not only
the URL and page title, but an assessment of the
content — how good the writing is, what the page
says, how it relates to other pages. [LEI11W-1]
Presented simply, HAL12O cites Wodtke differentiating these
two audit types:
As information architecture expert Christina
Wodtke says, an inventory catalogues “what’s
there” and an assessment answers the question:
“is it any damn good? [HAL12O]
A particularly interesting type of audit, named
Multidimensional Audit (3 publications, 1,5%), was identified.
Authors suggesting this content audit indicate that it would be
SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA
interesting to use the audit in conjunction with other methods,
or other data in order to facilitate analysis, as well as give more
strength to the results. EIS14C indicates that this type of content
audit:
[…] does not just list your content; it tells you a
full story about the content on each page and the
design formats. [EIS14C]
LEI13O suggests combining web analytics with the content
audit:
Combine your analytics and content audits on a
spreadsheet so you can sort according to
information architecture (IA) order or by page
views.
[…]
Have your developers count the number of
design templates or databases you are using.
Request information from the call center of the
top 10 issues or concerns they deal with on a
daily basis and look at the analytics for that
content. Compare your mobile analytics with
your desktop analytics to see if there are major
differences in the way people consume your
content using different platforms.
[LEI13O]
Area of Investigation
The second category is related to the area of investigation,
the information space to be audited. Facet based auditing
concerned all content, but specific attributes of the latter. Area of
investigation based audits focus on the device or the channels
where the content is displayed. Here is a description of the
Mobile Audit (1 publication, 0,5%):
As for all other types of content, you want to see
what’s already happening out there and where
the potential opportunities lie for your mobile
future. [WUE11O]
If addressing specifically the mobile content, there is no
explicit mention of “non-mobile” content. One might be
surprised by this result. However, since, the default area of
investigation of content audit is for “non-mobile” content, this
result is quite understandable.
What may surprise, however, is the presence of a single
explicit occurrence of a Multichannel Audit [LAN14O]. If other
authors suggest considering multiple channels of information,
beyond the website [e.g.: MCC11W, ALL11W], LAN14O is the
only one to identify it as a particular audit type.
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SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA
A comprehensive content audit looks across all
the channels to which a company publishes
content, including digital and print sources, to
ensure consistent quality and
messaging. [LAN14O]
The last audit identified in this category, the Community
Audit (1 publication, 0,5%), is quite different from the others in
that it is not particularly leaning on a channel or on a particular
device, but on particular content areas where interactions with
users take place. Arguably, it includes social media and
webpages that allow adding comments.
A record for a community audit might start with
a matrix but may evolve into a social map that
shows connections between community
members. [GEN12O]
The addition of other channels than websites demands the
selection of new criteria as well as the establishment of a new
dimension of comparison between channels, which can enrich
but also greatly complicate the audit.
Content Scope
This category of audit is relative to the scope of the content
to assess, i.e. the amount of content to be audited. Thus, if
previous audits addressed especially the channel or device to be
audited, these determine instead the amount of content to be
included in the audit. For example, it could be decided to audit an
entire website or only parts of it. A total of 6 audits could be
grouped in this category.
The first one, the Full Audit (6 publications, 3%): considers the
entire content.
A complete listing of every content item on the
site. This may include all pages as well as all
assets (such as downloadable files and videos).
[SPE14W]
It is sometimes (or often) impossible to select all contents of
the site, or of the informational space, especially when it is a
very large one. In these cases, it becomes important to determine
and select the contents to be audited. Hence, other audits will
focus on a particular content. For example, in the First-Level
Audit (3 publications, 1,5%), a selection of the first levels of
content
[…] focuses on a subcategory of the site, often
one among the top site hierarchy.” [WIKW-2]
Key-content Audits (3 publications, 1,5%) focus on the main
content and the main sections.
A high-level overview of the site’s main sections
and pages. [GLO10W]
8
I. Sperano
Similarly, Content Sampling Audits (3 publications, 1,5%) take
a representative sample of content throughout the site selection
of the entirety of the content.
A less detailed collection of examples content
from the site. [SPE14W]
One audit of this category, Content Mapping Audit (3
publications, 1,5%) is somewhat different. It is a content audit
where only the “important” contents are selected, then presented
in a graphical form.
[It] is a visualization, a simple illustration of the
site’s major content components. [FRA02W]
Number of Criteria
This category is related to the number of criteria to use,
without focusing on a precise topic. This category contains a
single element: The Brief Audit, where only a few criteria are
selected.
[B]y keeping it brief, it can be completed with
significant reductions in time and cost. [BAI11W-
2]
Moment of Realization
This last content audit category contrasts with others in that
it focuses on the moments of the realization of the audit:
Instead of a snapshot […] inventory your content
on an ongoing basis. [ROS06]
The content audit is normally conducted at the beginning of
the project, once. With the constant expansion of digital
information space, some authors wonder about the feasibility
and the relevance of a single content audit, which may quickly
become obsolete after a few years or even a few months.
When you’ve got hundreds or thousands of
distributed subsites and other pockets of content,
you simply won’t know what’s out there. If you
send a spider on a content reconnaissance
mission, you’ll still likely be overwhelmed by the
volume of content that turns up. And even if you
can send, as one past client put it, an “army of
monkeys” to swarm over and survey your
content, well, that’s not good either. No measure
of simians can deal with the jungle truth that
your content is a moving target. Any snapshot
you take of it will be instantly out of date. And in
your efforts to grab a comprehensive view of
your content environment, you will surely go
insane. [ROS06W]
Indeed, the audit could and should, according to several
publications, continue after the end of a content audit process.
Content Audit for the Assessment of Digital Information Space:
Definitions and Typology
You thought we were done with the content
audit? Not just yet. The tool that you used to
identify variety and inconsistency can help you
continue to rein it in after launch. A rolling audit
builds on the initial audit to ensure the
comprehensive, current view of pages or screens
and the content of them remains complete and
accurate. [BLO12O]
ROSW06, on the other hand, suggests undertaking an audit
“continuously”, naming this audit Rolling Audit. Several authors
thereafter suggested this type of audit.
This is what completes the description of audit types. It is
important to note that the categories are not mutually
exclusive. Indeed, it would be quite possible to undertake a good
practice audit (facet) of first-level content (scope of content),
considering mostly mobile users (area of investigation), for
instance.
Fragmented Knowledge
It is interesting to note that only three types of audit are
listed in more than 10 publications (in 5% of publications or
more), namely quantitative audit, qualitative audit and rolling
auditing.
Indeed, other types of audits are suggested by only few
authors.
This observation shows that the knowledge is scattered
through publications. Although each audit type is almost
exclusive to a single publication, their combination could be seen
as a first step towards a more complete picture regarding
possible audit types. This could also guide the audit managers
and the auditors to make more informed choices.
Developing New Audit Types
If the consolidation of audit types suggested through the
corpus provides an overview of different audit possibilities, this
list may not be exhaustive. In this paper, we suggest two new
audit types: The Specific Subject Content Audit and The Path
Content Audit.
Improving a Particular Content: Specific Subject
Content Audit
It seems relevant to add an audit type related to a particular
subject or content feature, but which is located in more than one
location. It could be named Specific Subject Content Audit. For
example, an auditor working on the website of the school of
SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA
design at Laval University may wish to identify all contents
related to the master of interaction design (MID) program. In this
case, he would audit the contents of the school of design website,
but also the content of its social networks as well as the parent
and child sites looking specifically for content addressing this
subject. The auditor could also review content about MID on
every Laval University website or even other digital content
addressing this subject (e.g. newspaper articles, alumni LinkedIn
page).
Such a content audit might be interesting for the
improvement of a particular content. Indeed, a better
understanding of what is being said about the MID would
provide a potentially interesting overview of the treatment of
this subject, and then highlight the shortfalls, the inconsistent
content, and the possible development tracks for this content.
User’s Journey Through the Information Space:
The Path Content Audit
Interacting with information will induce the development of
a mental representation of the system by the user [13] which, if
well done, will facilitate understanding. Considering the
potential user’s routes through the information space is
therefore crucial to the design of information ecosystems [14].
Hence, it seems another audit type could be added, where
content assessment sequence could be taken into account.
Namely, a content audit according to the user’s journey through
the information space could be an interesting audit type.
Indeed, it could be possible to determine an order of
assessment of the pages (or content) considering real or possible
paths of users through the site. One could think of an analysis
sequence based on predetermined routes, which considers
frequent users' tasks, for instance. What could be called a Path
Content Audit (which would assess the content based on
potential user paths through the structure) could be
implemented and added to possible content audit types. This
content audit type could help identify problems related to
wayfinding or content granularity, for instance.
Assessing other Content Channels
As for the content audit definitions presented above, one can
see that content audit types seem to be mainly website focused
(except for the ones under the Area of Investigation category).
This low occurrence of social media, as well as other digital
channels seems to show a more traditional approach to digital
information practices. More recent approaches take a more
holistic point of view which includes all the channels of an
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SIGDOC, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA I. Sperano

organization [15]. This is what leads us to suggest that new audit
types exploring other information channels could be added.
4 CONCLUSION
Proper use of discipline-specific methods with a certain
degree of formalization contributes to the development of an
expertise [4]. Based on this premise, this paper focused on one
particular method used for assessing content quality: content
audit. By highlighting the characteristics of a content audit, this
study attempts to take stock and establish a picture of the
current knowledge about the method, regarding definitional
aspects of content audit.
This research led to produce an unprecedented collection of
knowledge about content audit. It allowed to distinguish certain
trends, both about the method and its experts. It also provided a
factual basis for the method, rather than a series of anecdotal
comments, as is often the case in fields such as UX design,
information architecture and content strategy[10].
[7] Pernice K. 2004. Content Migration Alone Is Not An Effective Content
Strategy, Alertbox, 2015.
[8] Holzschlag M. 2004. 250 HTML and Web Design Secrets. Indianapolis, IN:
John Wiley & Sons.
[9] Detzi C. 2012. From Content Audit to Design Insight, UX Magazine, 2012.
[10] Hobbs J., Fenn T., and Resmini A. 2010. Maturing a Practice, Journal of
Information Architecture, vol. 2, no 1, p. 37‑54.
[11] Burford S. 2014. A Grounded Theory of the Practice of Web Information
Architecture in Large Organizations, Journal of the Association for
Information Science and Technology, p. 1‑18.
[12] Leray C. 2008. L’analyse de contenu: de la théorie à la Pratique, la Méthode
Morin-Chartier. PUQ.
[13] Dambreville S. 2008. Définir la structure de navigation : quelques outils
méthodologiques. In Ergonomie des documents électroniques, A. Tricot and
A. Chevalier, Éd. Paris: Presses Universitaires France, p. 159‑179.
[14] Malik S. 2014. Mapping User Journeys Using Visual Languages, UXmatters.
[15] Resmini A. and Rosati L. 2011. Pervasive Information Architecture:
Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences. Burlington, MA: Morgan
Kaufmann.
[16] Resmini A. and Instone K. 2010 Research and Practice in IA, ASIS&T Bulletin.

The results suggest that the content auditing method has

actually no real standards. Yet, in order to establish consistency
and coherence in the use of this method, it is necessary to
develop some consensus around content audit practices, both in
regard to definitional components and to audit types.

This study is not solely meant to inform academic research,

but also, to support the use of content audit by practitioners
from all information fields, and especially IA, User Experience
(UX) and Content Strategy. It could improve the current practice,
notably the audit typology, that could be a useful asset for
auditors.

By putting forward avenues of research and reflection for

both scientific research and practice, the results of this study
may offer a real opportunity to bridge the oft-cited gap between
research and practice in fields such as information architecture
(IA), content strategy and UX design [16].

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[2] Jones C. 2010. Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content.
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[3] Land P. 2014. Content Audits and Inventories: A Handbook. Laguna Hills,
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[4] Martin B. and Hanington B. 2012. Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to
Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective
Solutions. Beverly, MA: Rockport.
[5] Halvorson, K. and Rach M. 2012. Content Strategy for the Web, 2e édition.
Berkeley, CA: New Riders Press.
[6] Bloomstein M. 2012. Content Strategy at Work Real-World Stories to
Strengthen Avery Interactive Project. Waltham, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

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