By: Richard Stapleton, Deputy Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Our commitment to consolidating web content into topic-based websites has generated much interest.  One commenter asks about alternate models:

Comment:

I like the direction - just curious, why content by topic vs. by audience type a la girlshealth.gov, etc.? I know some of these exist but am wondering what HHS folks think about content by issue vs. content by audience? Or, does your strategy have room for multiple content types? What have users wanted/preferred in testing?

Response:

Actually, we organize content both by topic and by audience, depending on its nature.  If content is unique to an audience, of interest only to women, for instance, we organize it that way.  Our website WomensHealth.gov is an example.  Sometimes, we’ll organize a subset of content by audience within a topic-based site.  For example, our flu website includes a section dealing with audiences at special risk.

But most content is of interest to many, if not all, audiences. When we started developing audience sites, we realized that we were duplicating content on page after page, site after site.  Quitting smoking, for instance, is equally a concern for men and women from youth to senior citizen.  Even not so obvious topics such as breast cancer turn out to affect as well as impact both women and men.  Thus topic-based has become our default for content organization.