Developing a Mobile
Content Strategy for the
National Cancer Institute
Lakshmi Grama, M.A., M.L.S
Senior Digital Content Strategist
National Cancer Institute
• Part of the National
Institutes of Health
• Nation’s premier
cancer research
agency
• Legislative mandate
to communicate the
results of research
Jumping on the Mobile
Bandwagon?
User Research & Analytics
Bored now
Repetitive Now
Urgent Now
What Research Told Us
• Patients and their caregivers were
more likely to access our content on
mobile devices
• Health professionals were interested
but we may not be their primary
source of information in a point of
care context
• Scientific researchers really were not
interested in our content in a mobile
context
What Content ?
NCI Fact Sheets, 82602, 21%
PDQ Adult Treatment, 72228,
18%
Cancer Types, 54973, 14%
What You Need to Know, 51699, 13%
Coping with Cancer, 16389, 4%
Cancer Topics (Other), 12908, 3%
PDQ Adult Treatment
(Spanish), 12553, 3%
NCI Home, 11914, 3%
Other, 84534, 21%
The Existential Question for
Mobile
Cancer Apps in the Marketplace
Our Implementation Path
Content Entry and Publication
Content Reuse and Publishing
Our Structured Content
Worked Beautifully
As Did Images in Structured
Content
Adding Structure to Unstructured
Content
Leveraging Metadata
Autosuggest Works on Mobile
Too!
Sharing Our Content is Easy
As Is Connecting With Us
Content Strategy Decisions
• Put content on a “diet”
– Selected the most valuable content for
the mobile context
• Links to non-mobile optimized
content
• Make content sharable
• Developing a governance plan for
ongoing content sharing to mobile
Thanks to Our Great Team for
Making Mobile Happen at NCI
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