Case studies: the questions we get asked most

Teams tend to reach for this after something has already gone wrong. The questions about case studies that come up most often on our calls.

Content is the part of a project most likely to be underestimated and most likely to delay a launch. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

Do we need to care about this?

Problem, approach, result, in that order. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding.

How do we know it is working?

Name the client if they will let you. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

In practice

Pages that answer a real question outlive pages written to fill a slot in a sitemap. Three things worth confirming about case studies before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Problem, approach, result, in that order — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.