Look at the big content picture, avoid siloed work Another content analogy from me! Yesterday I cleared out a drawer. Did I poke around in the drawer, taking an item out at a time, dusting it off, putting it back in?… Did I take out a few items that felt related to each other, and put them back in together, leaving everything else undisturbed?… No. I took everything out. I only put back in useful items. From the remainder, I threw things out*, and repurposed a couple of things, only keeping what was necessary. Content transformation It’s the same with content. If you’re in a position to decide, don’t “improve content” in silos. Look at the big picture. Audit all your content together and reconfigure the IA. Delete out of date, inaccurate and duplicate information. Take valuable, useful information and present it in a way that’s usable and accessible, for example turn PDF content into HTML content, or add a diagram to visualise a concept described in the body copy. Explore our audit and other strategy services *put them in the recycling of course, but that muddies the metaphor! Post by Lizzie Bruce Image credit: RDNE Stock Project
On content and compost: maintaining your live content Content maintenance analogy coming up, for lovers of food waste and strategy! I had a countertop food waste container we emptied semi-regularly into my garden compost bin. That is, to be honest, when it couldn’t be squashed down further. This became a problem. I alleviated it, not with a bigger container… but a smaller one – to lead to more frequent emptying. I now see it as part of the holistic food prep task, instead of something left to fester in the background. Hmm, remind you of anything? Applying this to your live content This approach is needed for content maintenance. Little and often makes things easier, less painful and more integral to everyday tasks. Do you currently have reviews of your live content scheduled in annually? At all? Does this work tend to get pushed off off your radar for higher priority actions? You pencil in a day for the whole team to look over the site content, but it never happens, or you never get far? Schedule weekly reviews Change how you approach this. Add in just 2 hours a week to look over the live content on your site. Put your sitemap IA in a spreadsheet and divvy it up into manageable chunks. Involve subject experts if information may be out of date. Make it a session that people want to be a part of! Content lifecycle Because it’s not just about content approval and sign off for go live, it’s about content that’s published on your site remaining accurate and useful. Explore our content reviews and reports Post by Lizzie Bruce Image credit: Sarah Chai on Pexels.com
On content design “evangelism” Saw a discussion on LinkedIn about #ContentDesign evangelism. Some responses really resonated. Many people’ve now reached a point I reached a few years back: they’re bored of doing quite so much of it.For me things got interesting when discussion turned to how to do it. Best way to show worth is show how the content design input positively affected results.Which raises an irony… if we spend too long on advocating as an activity in itself, it leaves less time for designing content, which even the strongest advocates of advocating must agree is a separate activity. 😁But don’t just take my word for it…Jonathan McFadden“I guess it depends on what we mean nowadays when we say “evangelize.”If we’re talking Content Design 101 presentations and roadshows, then I don’t agree that should be part of the job. We’ve been there done that, and I haven’t personally seen it work well, if at all. If we’re talking consistently demonstrating product “impact,” deploying metrics and outcomes that point back to why a thing is better because a content designer worked on it, and loudly attributing the success of a project or product to Content Design, then call me a street preacher; I’m all for it.In my opinion, those are two very different ways to evangelize, and I think only one stands a real chance at succeeding.”Sarah Mondestin“Data=evangelism”Donnie B.“Showing the impact of our work is important, but if someone hires me without understanding the value of the role they hired for, I can’t help them.I’ve created brief, digestible presentations that show leadership how much they can save on potential legal trouble via well-researched, legal-approved product microcopy. I’ve had them try to navigate their own apps using assistive tech to understand the importance of accessible design patterns. I’ve spoken at all-hands meetings and shown video of users navigating an experience 3X faster via contextual help rather than having to peruse a monolithic help center. A lot of it falls on deaf ears. The systems we work in aren’t set up to reward what we do.The onus should not be on us. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a neurotypical brain, but I see this as a THEM problem that can’t be solved by evangelizing. They already know what we’re trying to evangelize, but they don’t care because what we do inherently serves the regular people on the other side of the screen. This doesn’t interest greedy execs who are interested in short-term profit above all else. That is the source of this disconnect.”Maisy Stratford-Hutchings“I would also love to see less focus on the underdog nature of content design roles in discussions here on LinkedIn. Between the evangelism discussion and the general concern over AI replacing us, it’s starting to feel a bit “woe is me” around here. Yes, you must advocate for your role. But advocacy is not the work. You can only convince someone to give you a seat at the table if you can demonstrate the value of your work, and then continue to deliver that value every day thereafter. I would love to see us spending more time discussing craft and honing our skills, because really, that’s the way you make an impact and ensure your contribution is valued.”
LocalGov-relevant resources I’ve created over the years My local gov background I started my digital career at Brent Council, who had residents reporting potholes by text back in the early 2000s! There I worked on everything from online service design and training staff in writing for web, to council-side work connecting people to relevant local services from one national site. I moved to a role with Department for Communities and Local Government, now MHCLG, working on Home and Community content, and feeding into the Local Directgov programme. This linked national to local, bringing people straight through to the service they needed from a central site outline of it. You can still do this for a limited number of services, including housing benefit, from GOV UK. I think the programme’s legacy could have been further reaching, for example encompassing digital plus alternative path standards, and service design patterns for local government services – in addition to the LocalGov Digital content service standard created in 2013.Much later, in 2018 I worked on local government service pattern co-design between GDS and local councils. These were heavily user researched, with interactive steps designed to GDS service and accessibility standards and customisable. (There is also a project from FutureLearn which identifies common components across council services.) I’ve since worked with local councils as a consultant, including New Forest District Council, as well as a range of different clients in the charity, higher education and further sectors. 1. Engaging stakeholders, management teams and CEOs Trailblazing for content design – my open source presentation, originally created for University of Cambridge Information Services senior management team. Digital transformation is not instant – my Prototypr article Why multidisciplinary teams are good – my CloudCamp talk 17 tips to get content people in the room, for non-content people – my Cake article, originally published on the Content Design London website Pair writing with subject matter experts, multi-disciplinary team members or content designers – my Cake article, originally published by GatherContent 2. LocalGov service patterns I was involved as the content reviewer and content designer on the central prototype for this collaborative national project. The main project purpose was to embed Verify into local gov services as an ID check, but in doing so built very well researched service patterns, which passed the GDS service assessment. Read about the patterns on the GDS blog: designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2017/10/16/designing-the-first-service-patterns-for-local-government Prototype links verify-local-patterns.onrender.com/service-patterns/parking-permit/example-service/start-page verify-local-patterns.onrender.com/service-patterns/concessionary-travel/example-service/start-page Journey maps plus design, user research and policy notes links verify-local-patterns.onrender.com/service-patterns/parking-permit/overview/design verify-local-patterns.onrender.com/service-patterns/concessionary-travel/overview/design 3. Training My article on the need for more UCD training options and why I created mine, plus article highlighting barriers to existing options. My UCD and content design e-learning offer: User centred design pathway course Content design pathway course Writing for web short course Content accessibility introduction short course User-centred design how-to articles I’ve written. Free digital content production tools I recommend. I’d like to licence my courses so that councils (plus charities and higher education providers) can have broader access, and customise them to incorporate into their internal training offering. I’d be happy to discuss re-creating them as branded training – get in touch.Plus, I can deliver the pathway courses as full or half day workshops. I’ve previously trained teams at MHCLG, APHA, British Red Cross, and The Law Society, and I co-created an Accessible content workshop-format course for Content Design London which was presented at A11y Camp Sydney 2019. 4. Content standards and community Readability Guidelines Whilst consulting for Content Design London as a content strategist and trainer, I led the collaboratively researched Readability Guidelines project and also wrote up the findings and designed the wiki: readabilityguidelines.co.uk. I grew the Slack community from about 40 to 700 through a social campaign and a structured collaboration strategy, and held weekly sessions with contributors worldwide. Style guides I contributed to the GOV.UK Style Guide when it was created in 2013, and the GDS Design system incorporates web design accessibility guidance I worked on at Office for Disability Issues, DWP, in 2009. I’ve helped Red Cross, University of Cambridge, GWR and more with their content standards, including maintenance considerations, and governance (crucially, streamlining approval processes and involving content teams earlier). 5. Intranets Central and local government I’ve embedded task-based intranets at DCMS, MHCLG, APHA and New Forest District Council and reached many more through my book. My content was used for the GovIntranet demo site: demo.govintra.net Book My task-based intranet content book is also an introduction to user-centred design. You can also access the free references and resources list, including case study links. Contact me Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com Useful links Local Government Association – Transformation LocalGov Digital website A common service standard for councils: research report User research library from LocalGov Digital Content Standard from LocalGov Digital Local Government Service Design Network Slack invite LocalGov Drupal Mapping service patterns for local government, FutureGov / TPX Impact
AI content quality control and review checklist, first version My gift to you! But please donate at ko-fi.com/lizziebruce if it’s helpful.* And check out my user centred design e-learning courses, which include content design. This is version 1.0 of an AI content quality checklist, made from a content designer’s point of view. Do credit me if you re-use the image or text! Inputs Does your prompt reflect a researched user need for the information? Have you provided a priority order for user needs relating to different aspects of the information? For example, opening times may be a higher info seek priority than parking. Does your prompt provide context? Have you provided content standards relating to accessibility, inclusivity, readability and usability, that consider a range of physical and neurological content access challenges? Have you provided a style guide? Have you included user language terms? Have you included important keywords? Have you provided names, authors and credits for quotes, citations and imagery? Outputs Is the content factually correct? Does it make sense when you read it? Does the content meet criteria that decide whether the user need has been met? Does the content answer user needs in the priority order you supplied? Does the content work for all your different audience types, applying its information in a variety of contexts? Does the content meet accessibility standards? For example, is link text meaningful, do images have alt text descriptions, is it in clear language, is the font legible, is there good enough colour contrast? Is the language used inclusive for all races, genders, abilities and ages? Might any framing or examples exclude any groups? Is the content easily absorbable for people who are dyslexic, very anxious, distressed or distracted, and people with low literacy? For example, are sentences generally around 15 words long? Has the style guide been followed accurately? Have user language terms been applied accurately? Are important keywords included in a naturally flowing, non-obvious way? Have names, authors and credits been applied correctly to quotes, citations and imagery? *Especially if you copy and paste the text description – provided for screen reader accessibility, and for people who find the image text difficult to absorb for other reasons. Thanks! ☕️
Design against bias: questions and resources to help you check yours Originally published on the GatherContent blog, 14 December, 2020. Earlier this year, a Twitter photo algorithm that cropped Black people out of photos was reported in the Guardian. Twitter apologised and said it had not gone far enough when testing the service for bias. In 2017 Chukwuemeka Afigbo, a Facebook employee in Nigeria, posted this tweet and video. The video shows a soap dispenser which only works for white skin tones. Tweet text: “If you have ever had a problem grasping the importance of diversity in tech and its impact on society watch this video.” – @nke_ise on Twitter. Their tweet was retweeted 170,000 times, and is referenced in many publications including Gizmodo. The exact same thing was experienced at the Marriott Hotel in Atlanta in 2015, as reported in Mic.com. Richard Whitney, quoted in the Mic article, explains how the design failed: “In order to compensate for variations in skin color the gain, [or] sensor equivalent to ISO and exposure in cameras, would have to be increased.” More examples of digital products not designed for all include a name form field input validator which did not recognise surnames with spaces or apostrophes in them, and the NHS Track and trace app that requires Bluetooth usage and recent operating system updates. This makes assumptions about device and data affordability, and digital skill. What to ask yourself, and your team First, remember that nothing is “normal”. Your normal is different to the next person’s. We all bring different cognitive biases from our backgrounds, upbringings, school life, work life, relationships with people and every other previous experience each of us has had as an individual. Find out more about cognitive bias: read ‘Considering Bias’ by Paula Dooton explore Buster Benson’s ‘Cognitive bias cheatsheet’ and ‘Cognitive bias cheatsheet simplified’ Questions to ask 1. Am I designing for “me”? Am I or is my team making assumptions about any of these? Race Culture Wealth Literacy Cognitive ability Digital literacy Mode or medium of access Broadband speed Data allowance Age Gender identification Sexual orientation Would what I am creating work for, or be understood, in the way intended by a broad range of people? 2. Am I designing for “me in the past”? Our experiences may be different from present day users’ – better, worse or just different in other ways. 3. Am I designing for “people I know”? Anecdotal references are exactly that. 4. Am I designing for “my peers as I imagine them to be”? If you’re ‘writing about writing’ or creating a resource for other designers, ask – am I designing for my own subconscious idea of them? Your projection of who this user is may not necessarily reflect you, but, unless it’s based on research, it is still a bias! A quick way to find out what biases you might be bringing to what you’re creating is to visualise your first instinct of who you see using your product. Draw or write down a description. What does that tell you? The only robust way to check your product design is not biased is to research and test in all stages of the design process of your digital product, service or platform, with real users, of a broad variety of cultural backgrounds, digital ability levels and using different devices, browsers and access technology. When to ask In Discovery: to remove bias from, inform and steer your desktop research, user research participant recruitment and user interview scripts. In Alpha: to take out bias from your prototype design. This could be: removing references that not all cultures would understand, not making gendered titles a required form field, not making assumptions about digital capabilities, like being able to upload a photo or use Google maps. In Beta: to recruit a wide range of user research participants and to make sure the prototype will work for people using a range of devices, browsers and access technology. At Launch: to make sure any launch events are accessible by all. To user acceptance test across a range of devices, browsers and access technology. After Live: to maintain content that is fit for all, gather feedback from a range of users and apply new insight. Explore this topic further Read ‘Please enter a valid last name’ by John Moore Williams ‘How to respect my ethnic name’ education resource by @AnpuLondon Listen to David Dylan Thomas’ Cognitive Bias podcast Read ‘Questions designers should be asking’ by Garrett Kroll Consider the ‘Writing about people’ recommendations on the Readability Guidelines wiki Read Lou Downe’s principles of good service design
Creating a collaborative and evidenced style guide Originally published on the GatherContent blog, 3 January, 2019. Imagine an open wiki with universal guidelines for inclusive content style. Evidenced, and iteratively updated. Well, for the last 10 weeks I’ve been working on Sarah Richards’ [Sarah Winters’] collaborative Readability Guidelines project from Content Design London to achieve just that. It’s ambitious and it’s exciting. Content professionals across the globe have been getting together for regular chats about punctuation and screen readers, audience labels and assumptions, plain language and specialist content. The goal is to find evidence for a set of universal style guidelines for content design that’s fully inclusive. The strategy was to involve as many content, usability, accessibility and other digital professionals as possible in searching for answers to usability questions identified during the previous phase of the project. A collaborative, global approach 410 cross-sector professionals in 17 time zones have so far joined the Readability Guidelines Slack workspace. I worked with contributors based in New Zealand, Canada, USA, Spain, Ireland, Scotland and England. Volunteer super-contributors led weekly research discussion sessions of up to 3 topics. We: referenced evidence from inclusive design focused organisations including GDS, RNIB, Scope and Nielsen Norman Group asked some of our Readability Guidelines questions at the London Accessibility Meetup are approaching the Digital Accessibility Centre looked at academic linguistic studies dating back to the 1970s The usability questions from Alpha We analysed the discussions from Readability Guidelines Alpha discussions held earlier this year. These are a selection of the questions we wanted to find evidence-based answers for. (Altogether there were about 20 specific topics.) Can we identify any abbreviations and acronyms that are universally recognised? Do ampersands help or hinder readability of navigation, titles and names? Do positive and possessive contractions cause issues for people with dyslexia, poor vision and learning difficulties (in the same way that negative contractions do)? Can we comprehensively compare screen readers treatment of punctuation that conveys meaning or adds nuance, like dashes and brackets? Does having a link mid-sentence impair readability? Are “we” and “you” organisation and audience labels confusing? How do we write about people respectfully and inclusively? Findings Over the next couple of weeks I on behalf of Content Design London will be updating the public wiki to reflect all the learnings from Beta. You can read about our findings along the way in our project updates. Here are some examples of guidance evidenced by the project: Use simple sentences: complex sentences take more brain power to process, make readability more difficult for low literacy level users and are harder to translate. Avoid capitalising words: people are more used to reading lowercase letters so comprehension is slower for capitalised words. Keep link text to the end of the sentence whenever possible: this reduces cognitive load and can work better for users with autism. Avoid abbreviations and acronyms except where users know them better in abbreviated form, for example GIF and 5KB. This reduces user confusion. Avoid referencing gender or age: it’s generally not necessary and can easily make your content non-inclusive. Choose respectful vocabulary: research what language could be emotive for your users by exploring forums, blogs and social media, and carrying out user testing. We also discovered that readability best practices, like using plain, simple language, short sentences, active tense, good grammar and accurate punctuation, improves ease of translation for localisation of content. Next steps We’ll look at what’s been sufficiently evidenced in Beta – and see what still needs usability testing. We know Scope and the Digital Accessibility Centre have carried out inclusive design usability testing recently and we’re keen to swap notes with them, so that we’ve got the most up-to-date evidence sources. We also want to speak with RNIB and will be dropping in on WebAIM content style discussions. Usability testing When we know what’s outstanding, and are sure we’re not duplicating anything, we’ll plan user testing for the readability questions which carry most impact. Funding will come from Content Design London and any grants we successfully apply to. Continuing the conversation No topics are “closed” and the wiki itself is iterative by design. The Slack discussion channels – about 23 – are staying open. You can still join the Slack workspace. We’re encouraging people to keep commenting and sharing evidence there and on the wiki. Collaborating further If your organisation is carrying out any user testing relevant to the Readability Guidelines topics and questions – from which they would be happy to publicly share findings – please do share these in the content testing channel. Reflections I’ve worked on national charity and UK government content and campaigns and enjoy “making a difference” through the projects I am involved in. However, the universal, inclusive design aims of this project and the international collaboration have made this project feel particularly valuable, exciting and special. We’ve been able to move forward in Beta because of our super-contributors and contributors, including myself, who’ve researched topics, led and taken part in discussions. Sometimes you read an organiser saying “we couldn’t have done it without you” and you think, really? But in this case, it’s absolutely true. Please keep the Readability Guidelines project in mind. If you have a comment you want to make or you know of a past or present usability study that may help answer our readability questions, do join us. Using the guidelines The Readability Guidelines are made to be used. You can access them on the public wiki. As with other best practice guidance, absorb them and apply them to your content design. The wiki is iterative and relies on collaboration to stay current and up to date. Guidance is organised by topic and each has an evidence section and a discussion page. Please add evidence for any updates you make to the guidance and give reasons for your edits on the discussion page so that everyone can understand the changes. Joining in There are several ways to collaborate on the Readability Guidelines. Here are a few things you can do to get involved: Explore the wiki pages Discover the conversation on Slack – invite to join: bit.ly/2D0OW1F Share relevant usability studies and academic research on the topic’s wiki discussion page or in the topic’s Slack channel Add usability studies you’re carrying out to the Slack content testing channel Become a super-contributor to collaborate further Follow #ReadabilityGuidelines on Twitter and LinkedIn, comment on posts with your thoughts around content usability and inclusive design
The importance of defining terms on every project, and how to agree them Originally published on the GatherContent blog, 28 September, 2020. It sounds basic, but making sure everyone’s talking about the same thing is one of the most important and effective things you can do to increase both the efficiency of a project and the likelihood that it will produce good outcomes. But have you ever considered that while you and another person might be using the exact same word for something, the person you’re speaking with might have a different understanding of it? In this article I’m going to dig a little deeper into this idea, first illustrating this fairly conceptual point with some non-tech world examples, before showing how digital teams can benefit from an understanding of this and what we can all do to address it. Learnings from language, literature and arts During my English BA I chose to study a module on signs and signifiers, which introduced me for the first time to the arbitrary nature of language and how we’ve built our own worlds with the vocabulary we use. How a tree, for example, is only known as a tree because that’s what some of our ancestors decided to call it, and ‘tree’ is nothing more than the name-label we have ascribed to it. I’ve always thought that René Magritte accidentally creates a poster for this with his painting ‘The Treachery of Images’ – ‘La Trahison des images’, which could equally point out the treachery of language. The painting is of a pipe, with the words in French for “This is not a pipe” – “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. Shakespeare goes there too with the well-known quote “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. This metaphor suggests the divisory power of the Montague and Capulet family names to be absurd, since they are just societal labels, whereas each human individual is their own person. But the metaphor used also highlights very well the arbitrary nature of language. A point which will also be obvious to anyone who has studied another language, and learnt its differing vocabulary. Language is our approach to naming the world around us, and often reflects what we prioritise: what is most important, or relevant, to us. Famously, Icelandic has multiple words for snow, some say over a hundred. The Maasai people have no intrinsic traditional words for colours and instead delineated them in reference to something of that colour, for example ‘the colour of the sky’ for blue, ‘the colour of milk’ for white. As a final example from the arts: a whole passage from ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ by Milan Kundera muses on the incompatibility of a couple based on their different backgrounds and experiences, not in and of those things themselves, but because of how their experiences affect the meaning each gives to words, and hence the different interpretations they have of them. “Meaning changes not only from language to language, Kundera argues, but from person to person as well. To further illustrate his point of the ambiguity of words, Kundera includes a dictionary of misunderstood words that pass between Sabina and Franz. The competing definitions of these commonly used words again suggest that meaning can never be completely fixed or certain. …Franz uses the word ‘betrayal’ to express “the most heinous offense imaginable.” Sabina, on the other hand, sees ‘betrayal’ as “breaking ranks and going off into the unknown.” To Sabina, venturing into the unknown is the most glorious feeling. …Definitions are not fixed, so humans like Sabina and Franz can never reach universal understanding and agreement.” – Extract from LitCharts.com Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the emphasis on classification and taxonomy, defining terms is also recognised as very important in science, as highlighted in this articles discussion of 15 shark conservation terms. Regional variation It’s common for different regions who use the same language to have different names for the same thing. A recent YouGov survey investigated different names for bread rolls across England. ‘Cobs’, ‘rolls’, ‘barms’, ‘baps’ – even ‘muffin’, ‘teacake’ and ‘batch’ came up in the responses from just under 25,000 adults. In digital comms we know well the importance of localisation. We don’t use a regional dialect word when the audience we’re trying to reach is broader than that region. And we try to localise content, to increase its relevance to users, where the technology and budget is available to do so. Applying this to tech projects If you’re designing a shoe and you have a different interpretation of, for example, the term ‘contemporary twist’, than the shoemaker, then you could end up with a very interesting product. Likewise for a digital product. It’s not only about being exact, having specifications and avoiding subjective technical descriptors like ‘fine’ – which could be ‘high quality’ or ‘very thin’. It’s about actually checking if you have the same understanding of a term based on everyone’s past experience of that term, which may vary greatly. Case study: defining personal data terms, UK government The last project I worked on at the Government Digital Service, in 2018, was around personal data. Subject matter experts from two separate teams who had not worked together before needed to join up for the project and work seamlessly together. To help to that effect, we decided to create an internal glossary of personal data terms. One term was “attribute”. At first it seemed the various members of the different teams all had differing views on what a personal data attribute was. However, when I analysed their definitions, and demonstrated this to them all on a whiteboard with different colour marker pens to show similar language elements, it turned out they were simply using different words to describe the same thing. Importantly, we were then able to add agreed definitions of personal data attributes agreed across the teams to the project glossary. Sometimes it’s well worth stepping back and breaking down your definition of something to understand the essentials of what you mean. Workshop a project glossary as a team All this leads up to your main takeaway: create an internal project glossary at the start of the project – not just adding definitions of terms but making sure everyone’s interpretation of the definition agrees. A good way to do this is to get team members to explain the term in other words and ways from what’s written up as the definition. In foreign language teaching we call this checking technique eliciting: asking students to describe their understanding of, say, “kitten”, or asking them to agree or disagree with qualities that might apply: “Is water dry?” For the personal data project we agreed definitions of about 50 terms. Project glossaries help everyone in the current team, and also new members who join later. It’s worth everyone checking back to the glossary at different times through the project, to make sure no one starts projecting their previous understanding of the term. The terms you decide to define in your project glossary, that you deem important for common understanding among the team, can apply not just to what the project deals with but how. An excellent article to read on how a team defined terms around government ‘services’ is ‘A common language to understand services’ by Kate Tarling. Definitions: what else are they good for? Internal project glossaries, including defining organisational processes or methodologies, can also help team members who are: new to your area of the business or organisation unfamiliar your style of project work not yet fluent in your language: learning the project terms will be priority vocabulary for them Some digital products include an external glossary. While it’s recommended digital best practice for usability and accessibility to define things in context, sometimes an index or glossary can be a good further tool to support user understanding. This can be particularly useful for medical, legal and financial products. The practice of law involves knowledge of ‘articles of law’: legal terms that mean very specific things. Finally, keep in mind that colleagues and peers you meet – in passing, in the kitchen, at conferences, while networking, at a work event – might have different interpretations of the same vocabulary items. Don’t be afraid to check. Try “By X do you mean…?” or “Could you explain to me your interpretation of X please, as I know people may have had different experiences of that than I have.” Takeaways Define your project terms among your team, check everyone has the same understanding of the definitions. Create a project glossary and refer back to it. Check with colleagues and peers to gain an understanding of exactly what they mean. Further resources ‘A common language to understand services’ by Kate Tarling ‘The importance of defining terms’ by Matt Shipman Glossary of terms, Public Health England
End-to-end content experience analysis reports, and quality assurance spot checks Originally published on GatherContent 16 June, 2021 Regular, comprehensive checks of your content could make all the difference for conversions, repeat customers – and brand reputation. If the user experience of your product content is inconsistent, it’s not just bad for your customer. It’s bad for your brand and business, too. Spot check web content reviews and 360º end-to-end branded content analysis are 2 ways to focus in on and boost your content usability. The benefits include: Identifying priority content usability improvements to ripple across your site. Discovering content inconsistencies within a solo channel and across multiple channels – is the old logo still being used anywhere? Does tone of voice change from online to offline, or from pre-sale to post-sale? Proactive, rather than reactive, content maintenance planning. It may feel like you’re drowning in business as usual, but trust me: stepping back and taking an analytical look at your content will save you time overall. It can also be a swift way to increase conversions, and customer satisfaction. Spot check web content review You may never have done one of these before: most companies tend only to get informed content usability insights when a new hire joins. Looking objectively at content highly familiar to you can be hard, so consider outsourcing to a content expert, who should be able to carry this out in a few days. Or assign the work to a new starter on the content team, if they have the right skills. Planning the review Ask your reviewer to cover a discrete area, or pick out a variety of content types from across your site for them to scrutinise. For example: news item, transaction flow screen, static informational page, online form, error message, cookie notice. What a web content usability review should highlight: clear language opportunities: plain English, no jargon, simple sentences potentially confusing content: sometimes meaning is obvious to internal staff, but might not be externally – applies particularly to product branding, content categorisation, acronyms and initialisms navigation issues: going round in circles, or irrelevant Search results content accessibility improvements, to meet WCAG 2.1 standards readability improvements, to meet Readability Guidelines editorial style inconsistencies opportunities to increase diversity and inclusion in text and images opportunities to alter tone of voice for appropriacy, dialling elements up and down opportunities for using content patterns clearly out of date content duplicated content readability of legal notices traditional proofing errors, like typos, placeholder copy left in, broken links How to use the review You will gain a good idea about which content usability themes need most attention, and can apply the findings across your web content estate. Out of date content and duplicated content can be deleted, saving time for your team and users. Clear language on the website will reduce email and chat enquiries. Smoother navigation and a more powerful search will increase conversions and reduce drop off. If the reviewer finds concepts, rather than wording, confusing, you might immediately make changes or decide to carry out user research with your customer base, to check if it’s an issue. 360° end-to-end, online and offline content analysis This type of content insight report goes beyond your site, beyond your other digital and social comms even, to look at the complete online and offline customer experience of your content. It’s basically getting in a test customer, but one who is a content expert. Every piece of content your user is presented with affects their experience. For continued and repeat satisfied customer, there’s no point having: clear language, good readability and high colour contrast on your website, but the opposite on your social posts perfect style and tone of voice consistency in your enewsletter, but inconsistency and typos in company sales blast emails a smooth path to purchase, then impossible to follow product usage instructions a glossy catalogue through the door, which doesn’t mention the website an event flier, which doesn’t mention the location or has the wrong date a delivery text or email in a very different tone and style to the rest of your customer comms Planning the analysis List the online and offline content items your company produces, for example web content, enewsletter, customer emails, order and delivery text content, active social channels, media coverage, postal mail drops. You may need to consult with a few other teams and departments. Provide links and examples for the online content, in case these are hard to find from your website or the process does not work as it should. Especially monthly enewsletters, which may not be due for a few weeks or may have a lag time for mailing list additions. Provide a test card or code to purchase any items. Provide any auxiliary print items that would not be generated by the purchase, for example press ads and speculative through the door brochures. The content insights analyst creates a checklist of everything they are told about. Anything additional they encounter from their interactions as a proxy customer they should add to the list. What a 360º content analysis report should answer Is all your content on-brand, user-friendly, customer-focused, accessible, inclusive and consistent? What is the customer content experience of web, email, text messages, notifications and alerts, social, enewsletter, leaflets/catalogues by post, packaging, invoice or receipt, paper product instructions, returns forms? The content insights analyst should assess each individual content item against all the agreed criteria. It could take up to 6 weeks to compile but would not need full time input. How to use the analysis Use the report to see how you can better align your tone of voice and clarity of language across all elements of your content, to make sure your wider conversation with your customer is as consistently high quality as you would wish it to be. For example, if you use “we” and “you” on your website and social, don’t switch to talking to your customer in the third person on instructions, receipts or complaints procedures. Follow up on the 360º insights around content accessibility, like low colour contrast or small print reducing content readability, with relevant teams. Taking the analysis further The content analysis report may also uncover potential service design improvements, like changing courier company or providing a tracking number instead of multiple text and email notifications. You could also: check existing customer feedback loops your company has, to gain further insight and understanding meet with other teams to discuss how collaborative working could improve your end customer experience of content ask your technical writers for their input on user-centred product content Takeaways Structured analysis of content on the page, not just page analytics, can boost your content usability. You can improve the usability of your current, known to be needed and useful content, by applying best practice techniques like clear language. Keep up the goodwork by committing to regular maintenance andspot checks of your content. Remember that it has a life after live! More resources ‘Why you need a content team’ book by Rachel McConnell Content reviews and 360º reports from Cake Consultancy ‘How to make style guides that people will use’ article by Gigi Griffis (no longer available)
Get a head start on digital projects – include content from the Discovery phase Originally published on the GatherContent blog 16 July, 2019. Content insights during Discovery will boost your product or service design. Find out what a content strategist or designer can help with. Using agile methods and processes on digital projects is a mindset. Being flexible and iterating designs. Being able to easily rub something out or throw it away, if it isn’t working for users. “Let’s pivot”, that is, “Let’s rethink and take this in another direction” is a positive, as long as it’s based on user evidence. This is where a Discovery phase can help. The Discovery phase But before designing, usability testing, iterating and developing can start there’s the Discovery phase: exploring user needs, and the background to those needs. But before designing, usability testing, iterating and developing can start there’s the Discovery phase. If there’s no content designer assigned to be involved in the Discovery phase of a project, you need to make noise about changing this. Often content designers are brought in only after Discovery. Sometimes as late as Beta. By that time, the design route being developed has already been decided on, and vital content input has been completely missed. No content expertise at the start of digital projects is a risk This ignores the usefulness of a content designer or strategist in the early stages. Each member of a multidisciplinary team brings a different, unique skill, as I expanded on in my blog post about why multidisciplinary teams are good. Content people will notice things that others will not. Which could mean your product fails. Yes, it’s as simple and dramatic as that. Examples of some content insights A good content person knows: You’ll need a clear, readable, memorable and short campaign URL or hashtag on a poster otherwise people will forget it, or not even get through reading it. Users just won’t read or understand the details of a dense, legal-term heavy letter, or spot a website link at the end or lost in the middle of it if it does not stand out as a link. Users may exit your site before they’ve really arrived if your cookie policy is passive aggressive. People accessing site content using screen reading software will go to your competitor if your website is inaccessible. There’s no point using the words “waste disposal unit” across all your channels when your audience uses the word “bin”. They can help out in what might be thought is a purely technical development area, by telling you not to include a 1 or an l in the passcode you send them. Not to make assumptions about users based on site analytics. A son might be logged on with a parent’s profile on the family computer. A housing advisor might be looking something up for a vulnerable user or a volunteer might be helping someone without digital skills. Case study: content design for a service I joined a project in mid-Beta, with hundreds of issues logged in GitHub that several iterations of design and user-testing had not resolved. Once I was involved, I pushed to perform an overall content review of the prototype-in-progress for a service. I had to push for this as the already well-established team were addressing each issue individually at that stage. But I could immediately see there were a lot of best practice content fixes that needed to be made across the service. Once I’d been allowed to give the prototype a content facelift, about half of the issues disappeared in the next round of user testing. And as the project continued with a content designer on board, the service designer I was working with was asked what he was taking to result in all the improvements. He answered: “content design”. How a content designer plans during a Discovery phase User research Attends Discovery user interviews Researches and analyses website visitor stats Looks at what users are saying relevant to the product/service on other channels, like Twitter and forums Service research Looks at all current content around the product/service Looks at competitor sites Maps live user journey, identifies pain points Processes research Interviews stakeholders, like policy team and product owners. Discovers what internal processes are influencing the content and the shape of the service – for example something could take 5 working days more than it needs to because a form is download, print and send (add mailroom processes and opening a backlog of post), rather than complete online. Analysis Translates research into user needs and acceptance criteria – creating ‘user stories’. Applies top user tasks analysis to prioritise user stories. Maps against organisation’s goals to show how answering user needs with better content will serve these goals. After the Discovery phase, planning continues In Alpha (various design options phase) and Beta (developing one preferred design route into prototype phase), content designers keep on researching and planning. For example, using Google trends and other sources to find the words users are using before writing any content. Sketching is also a big thing. It helps us consider and reject or take forward conceptual ideas for page design and journey flow, information architecture, online tools and more. Spreadsheets usually feature a lot too. All of this happens before a word is written. Content is more than words. Content is planning. And a lot of thinking. And then it is design as well as words. Because the thing the user needs might be, for example, a tax calculator tool, rather than a dense explanation of how much tax they are liable for in various scenarios. How a content strategist plans Content strategists start before Discovery. They meet with the transformation or product lead in advance of the project. In Discovery they can be involved in the activities listed out above for content designers. They might also advise the transformation lead on internal process changes, like making that form online for instance. Strategists demonstrate the benefits of more efficient content governance to wider staff involved in the process of content production, not just the creative team. They are highly experienced in business operations as well as user-focused content and service design. They are well-positioned to make recommendations that come out of Discovery, a common example being grouping content by user need rather than organisational structure. When a strategist is available for a project, they bring skills and experience that really helps with the task of prioritising content based on organisational goals. Achieving content presence on a project As a content designer or strategist you may be thinking, yes but how do I get invited to Discovery and earlier planning stages? Ideas Advocate for content whenever you can. Invite non-content colleagues to content show and tells. Show them something really good, and easy to relate to, like the GOV UK Design System examples of error messages done well. Save examples of your content design work. If you hear of an upcoming project without any content representation on it, schedule a chat with your design studio manager or programme lead and present them with a portfolio showing how content helped in past projects. Get involved in discussions on internal channels your organisation might use, like Slack or Yammer, not just about content and design but about business goals. Show how content design can support those. Attend digital industry events, and represent for content.
Pair writing with stakeholders, subject experts, designers and other team members Originally published on the GatherContent blog, 17 August, 2020. I’ve seen pair writing done well and done badly. This article suggests some steps and advice for achieving the former. But first, what is pair writing? It’s the practice of writing a piece of content together with someone else. You meet up in real time, likely to be remotely at the moment, and both have the draft document open. The content designer would have created the draft document, which may at the initial stage only have section headings, based on and prioritised by user needs. Unless you are pair writing with a content designer, you would only discuss factual information to answer the user needs, and whether your content development and iterative edits are factually accurate. Pair writing with subject matter experts Step 1: Involve subject matter experts (SME) in regular content show and tells – so that they know about and understand content design, and know the schedule of upcoming topics far in advance. Step 2: Meet with them at the start of writing a piece of content on a topic in their knowledge area. Tell them what the user needs are for the content. Ask about any information gaps you’ve identified in the factual source material you have access to. Step 3: Draft your piece of content and book in a meeting with the SME, for them to review it with you. Step 4: At the SME review meeting, explain what the content decisions were and remind them of, or share, learnings on content design best practice.It’s more effective to refer to external references on usability and readability than to present the best practice as your professional opinion or what the organisation style guide says, as they may well argue against internal advice! I’d recommend the Readability Guidelines wiki. Not because I worked on it for a year and a half, but because it has over 200 usability evidence sources to back up the guidance.If you know something is best practice but haven’t got a reference to hand, let the SME know that you will do some research and follow up with them. Case study example: I had to put job profile descriptions into plain English. SMEs argued for more nuanced terms. I explained that clear language is more user-friendly for their national audience of 17 year olds, career changers and returners to work, who may not know much about the job yet or may have a low literacy or fluency level. Also explained that although being concise is generally good for web content, a clear language definition may end up making the copy longer but that’s OK as it is better for content to be understood by all than to be brief. Step 5: Edit the draft for any feedback you agree needs to be actioned. Your steer on what to change should be:1) factual corrections where meaning may have been obscured in your draft2) extra information, if it meets a user need For this step, if you are comfortable doing the edits “live” you can edit the draft during your Step 4 discussion. If not, thank the stakeholder for their contribution and say you will be in touch with them about the next review session. Step 6: Get another content designer or content person on your team to peer review the draft, that is read through it and give any style, readability or layout suggestions they may have. This is sometimes called a 2i, standing for having a second eye on the content. Amend if you agree with their suggestions or leave it to user testing to decide. A/B testing, where you user test 2 different versions of content, can often solve differences of professional opinion between designers. Step 7: Test the content with users. This may be within a clickable prototype. Testing with 5 users is said to uncover 85% of user issues, but remember that leaves 15% undiscovered. Iterate the content from analysis of their feedback. When you analyse user feedback, look for themes. Usually if only 1 person has a minor problem you can discard it. However, if that is because the person has access needs that the others do not, and the problem relates to access, then you should not discard the feedback. Repeat as many times as necessary for a good understanding of the content, and smooth interaction with it, by a variety of users, or as far as budget allows. Step 8: Meet the SME to run through the final draft, or email it to them. Be clear that at this stage you can only accept factual amend suggestions. If you email it, set the permission to comment only, not track changes. If they make a lot of comments, arrange another in person meeting. If you make significant changes as a result of their feedback, ask another content designer to 2i the final draft. Step 9: Make sure that the SME understands that they are responsible for the factual accuracy and appropriacy of the content. They should get in touch if for example regulations referenced in the piece change or are removed. You would also involve them in regular 3, 6 or 12 month reviews of the content piece. Whenever you talk to SMEs, make sure they understand and largely agree with your content design changes. Keep explaining things patiently. If they refuse to acknowledge user centred-design content principles, escalate the discussion to your content lead, head of content or UX lead. Pair writing with service designers You might have a service designer working with you on a digital product or service. You’d work closely with them throughout the build, but in terms of drafting initial content you’d meet with them at: Step 2, to understand fully the intricacies of the service Step 7, to iterate the content to reflect service or product changes made as a result of user testing feedback (you would also apply content design changes that you believe will fix user issues and observe any difference made at the next round of testing) Possibly at Step 8, if the SME had significant changes Step 9 for the “life after live” reviews, testing and iteration Pair writing with technical architects Technical architects might ask you to work with them to write up technical reports in language that non-technical project members can understand. You would pair write with them by getting them to explain clearly what they mean by technical jargon.Keep asking them “What does that actually mean?” until you reach a point where a non-technical specialist can understand the content. Encourage them to explain abstract concepts to you as though they were explaining it to a friend. This can be a good way to get a simple take on it. Another good way to translate technical concepts into clear language is to write a phrase or definition out on a white board and analyse parts of the sentence in turn to find clearer alternative wording. Pair writing with another content designer As well as the at 2i stages at Step 6 and Step 8, you could share your draft with a second content designer every time you make revisions, and invite them to the SME meetings. You would also get peer content designer feedback at content crits.Alternatively you may be working together with a second content designer to co-create a piece of content. If you’re pair writing 50/50 like that, to create the initial draft you’d both sketch out how to word and prioritise headings to answer needs, then discuss your sketches to agree on the best of both to write up into a draft document. You could then take it in turns to meet the SME, and agree edits together afterwards. That can help prevent it becoming or being perceived by the SME as a person-to-person opinion exchange. Or you could both meet the SME to back each other up on content best practice, but be very careful with this as it could come across as bullying them into it. Or you may have a senior content designer working with a more junior one to mentor them and pass on skills.Both content designers should attend, or remotely observe, all user testing on the piece of content. And you’ll still benefit from large group content crits, where content designers who are not as involved in the piece of content can give objective feedback on how understandable it is. Resources Readability Guidelines wiki How we use pair writing – GDS blog
AI, and aIl that Artifical Intelligence jazz I agree completely with Matt Jukes’s newslettered thoughts on AI completely, have seen it this way since attending a CloudCamp event last Autumn, ‘AI Antidote: Part 3’. The following is my take on it all, after some useful reading and chats this week. It’s not one large entity As ever, ‘naming things is hard’, and quick, catch-all shortcut (mis)labelling has led to confusion. To put it simply… AI is less like jam, more like hundreds and thousands.No 🫙🍓Yes 🍬🍭🍧🍡Lizzie Bruce That is, it’s not one solidified, or even corelated, mass – it is millions of sprinkles. Bots, tools, models. “Hacks” and shortcuts and calculators. Crunching data, applying commands, serving results – sometimes stat-based, prodded and prompted and chatted up. New term on the block To understand the term ‘AI’, which is very much with us now, it could be useful to think of it as you think of the term ‘apps’ – many, varied, doing different things for different purposes at different scales, and to very different levels of effectiveness. That’s not a direct like-for-like comparison by any means, but could help you get your head around the surface term. User-centred designers, let’s talk I’m gathering informed takes on AI in the UCD Freelancers Slack. Find out how to get listed in the Directory, to join the Slack chat.
News about Cake e-learning courses Have you taken our e-learning courses yet? You can study them on mobile on the bus, on your laptop snuggled up on the sofa, or just on your office computer. First, find out what’s new. Content design pathway iteration The content design pathway topics have been reshuffled for a more cohesive flow. If you’ve already bought this or or our other pathway you still have access. Pathways offer Our pathway courses in user-centred design and in content design, are now both 12 modules long each. Each may take about 3 to 5 hours to complete, but this will depend on your learning style. You’ll get 20% off when you buy both at the same time. We’ve done the maths, it’s £152 to get both together. Add them to your cart, then enter the code: UserNeeds Training for teams Team training has a new discount structure. For £800, up to 10 learners can study one pathway course – a 15% reduction. So that’s £1600 for 10 members of staff to upskill in both user-centred design and content design! Bargain! Writing for web short course Newly available: a short course on writing for web, based on our popular physical tip cards. This course is for: small businesses looking for immediate quick wins for their web content organisations at the very start of the user-centred design learning curve other disciplines looking to learn a few pointers people in marketing and social media roles career changers at the beginning of their journey sixth formers and uni students who want to write more effectively online anyone else interested! We highly recommend anyone taking the writing for web course also takes our content accessibility short course. Check out all Cake learning options
Content design is not just pre-Alpha, it’s pre-Discovery Content is important, undoubtedly. It’s the medium for conveying information. But it isn’t everything. Frequently, the work of content designers acts as a tool that highlights all the other skills a service or product needs. So include content designers at the diagnositic stage, ideally pre-Discovery – and don’t think you only need to recruit content designers, or mono-recruit in any discipline in fact. Good design is a multi-disciplinary effort. “User-centred design is a team sport.” The usual story Content design hones in on understanding what information users need the different stages of their journey to complete tasks online, and what source material is accurate and relevant for them. This involves user research and internal process research. Sometimes content designers and strategists take all that on, gathering and parsing the data brilliantly. They describe processes to users, they present information optimally with content that’s usable, inclusive and accessible. However, very often, they identify issues with the internal processes and the external offering. Users need X, but the service only allows Y. Users need Z but internal processes mean this cannot be done. They can flag this up, but more work is needed, and at this stage the organisation often doesn’t listen. Business analysis is needed So content folk can end up as proxy business analysts. But that is not a skillset they are trained in or specialist at. Their trouble-shooting flags are spotty and serendipitous, where professional BAs are systematic and rigorous. Service design is needed Content folk can find themselves becoming proxy service designers, again not a skillset they‘re trained in or specialist at. They can almost never effect service change or influence policy. For example, content designers can apply accessible presentation and inclusive language, but they cannot make the service or product more accessible or inclusive. User research is needed Content professionals should not be seen as user researchers – they are only trained in content-based user research: relating to focusing information, gap-fill and information architecture. They’re not trained to recognise non-verbal body language cues, and generally not in psychology. They’re not empowered to influence service and product design so, rather like the Casandra figure in ancient Greek mythology, they can describe the current status but not bring about robust improvement. Learn more about Cassandra from Wikipedia. Interaction design is needed Content designers can work up a wireframe, juggle Miro boards, edit Figma and learn to code. Or simply do great things in a Word or Google doc. They can prototype visually, perhaps in html. But they are not interaction designers: they are generally not highly trained in interaction design. Graphic design is needed Content designers and editors can add a screen reader accessibly-described graphic to enhance meaning and support the info absorption needs of some dyslexic users. They could be fairly decent at Photoshop. But they‘re not graphic designers. Development is needed They can edit the CMS and develop workarounds and fixes so that content presents as intended. But they‘re not developers, front or backend. Next steps – go wide Content design is vital. It helps you to understand your processes anddescribe them clearly to users. However, for deep value product and service designimprovement, you need a multi-disciplinary team (and yes, that includes content). Here at Cake Design Studio we’re saying have a hard think about your information right upfront at the very start of a digital transformation project. Get content designers to describe the current processes, and make those clear to users – and the organisation. Use this as an internal tool, a springboard, a pre-alpha, a first iteration.Understand your processes – and work out how to improve them: with business analysts, user researchers, service designers, graphic designers, interaction designers and developers, plus content folk. Build your user-centred design team High value data, research and user-centred design are a multidisciplinary effort. Good information design ‘takes a village’. Find out more about multi-disciplinary teams. Make sure you have the user-centred design team you need. We’re building a directory of UCD freelancers – use it, share it, join it. UCD freelancers directory
Weeknotes: 29 August 2024 Quite a momentous week! A logo snazz-up, and much more. Launched the Beta of the UCD freelancers and contractors directory. Updated the Cake operational name, logo and site design. Continued insightful and constructive conversations with various content professionals. Was included in Matt Jukes’ Bluesky starter pack!
Weeknote: 7 June 2024 My 1 #weeknote for this week: I’ve created a members group for content designers, strategists, information designers, interaction designers, user researchers and more to learn and share about self-publishing. Check it out?Self-publishing for content designers, strategists and more – a LinkedIn group 💻 📕 📒 📚
Weeknotes: 19 April 2024 For a flavour of this week’s notes: it’s everything from historical rail travel to the Bechdel test, by way of music licensing, localgov patterns and tasty pastries. – 3 articles I worked on: ‘Moral rights’, on ‘Websites, social media and copyright’, and on ‘What’s possible with DACS image licensing?’ are now live on the new DACS website. It also has a fast and accurate search – kudos to John at Ten4 Design.– Thrilled to craft content relating to one of my favourite music groups, The Chemical Brothers. DACS has set up licensing agreements for their singles and albums artwork. And am very glad DACS and ALCS are making creatives aware of their moral rights, which are completely separate from intellectual property (IP).– LocalGov patterns – a massive update on this, and a continued celebratory mood – as someone has already managed to get them live again, 8 months ago.– So, enjoy policy, research, design and, some, code documentation and demos on onrendor.com for 2 pretty universal local gov services: parking permit and older person’s bus pass! Martin Jordan and Ben Cheetham both said very nice things about the project.– Also now live, for the first time, is the Rail history timeline I drafted for the 200 year celebration website: railway200.co.uk/timeline. Whoop! Or rather, choo choo!– Have just checked and the VisionPlus24 conference website in Vienna, on 20 and 21 June 2024 from the International Institute for Information Design now mentions we will be able to obtain tickets soon, lovely.– Enjoying a new coworking space La Jonquière in Clichy – and shout out to spacebase.com. I also had the nicest almond triangle pastry on the very street of the co-working, and their free coffee is Very Good – leading to imbibance of 4 espressos yesterday! – Thought nostalgically about the Fetch dog of iWeb designs to server upload fame, after someone on Bluesky quoted Celeste Ng speaking on AI: “Literally no one is asking for the stuff AI is being pushed for right now (which is everything). It’s the tech company version of fetch, and they’re determined to make it happen.”– Also on Bluesky, had interesting chats about dyscalculia, Autism and ADHD.– Got fired up about the need for non-digital paths, a petition to discourage short-haul flights, workplace machismo, and the fact that the actual address – the flat number – is wrong on my new property contract. I mean, come on. This follows the vendor’s name being misspelt, or more kindly typo-ed, by Land Registry. I guess people are more distracted than ever nowadays.– Watched Drive-Away Dolls, and all of new iPlayer comedy Dinosaur. Both pass the Bechdel test, though the former more than the latter.– Tried again to learn when to use ‘which’ and when ‘that’. In English. Was also astounded about some stats that say you can learn a language in 40 weeks. I thought it was a continuous, never-ending task. But passersby do continue to ask me directions in French, and much to my surprise I answer in French, with no ensuing panic on either side. Au revoir!
Weeknotes 5 April 2024, 12 April 2024 It’s another double bill for this week’s weeknotes! – Easter break was lovely, and I caught up in-person with an ex-graphic design colleague from waay back. He now runs the Electric Eel cocktail bar in Karlsruhe. We talked career paths and speakeasys, Basset hounds and folk documentaries. And writing. It turns out Craig was an ace at advertorial writing, but morphed into graphical design. He writes a mean weekly newsletter from the Eel, check it out. – Wrote/designed various informational advice articles for arts copyright client. Learnt more about moral rights! Excellent factual source material for the evidenced user-needs, so mainly reshaping question and answer content into topics with front-loaded headers. I shared some clear language do-overs of incidental legalese on the Cake Content Consultancy LI page. – It’s going to take a little longer to get the original localgov service patterns up due to various factors, mainly how incredibly good the interactive demo site was. It’ll likely be just the screenshots and descriptions. – Upheld that you are not the user, but promptly after found that sometimes you are – in a chat with James Green about content translator options. I was flummoxed to find how disparate my need as a user (an obvious translate button please, ideally with an icon that makes sense in any language) differentiated from what I would recommend as good practice (trio writing or as a fall back a browser extension). Don’t worry, I’ve now got the Google translator extension for Chrome. But if it took me a digital professional this long… #DigitalSkillsGap – Adam Silver (loving his LinkedIn profile url), who has in the last couple of months been the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mentor, gave me some great advice again. As a result I am taking down my user-centred content design educational offering and reshaping it. Watch this space. – Adam launched his Prototype Kit course for government designers including content designers, which by all accounts is excellent. If you’ve seen the quality of his posts or read his newsletter, you’ll already know that it would be. I’m tempted to take it myself, and have been thinking again about the logic and little grey cell challenges of working in code… – Disappointed to hear that there was a meet-up with ‘proving value of content design’ top of agenda, loosely associated with folk who 12 years prior named and defined content design, and 5 years after they published a deeply researched article proving the value of content design, including quoted research from Gerry McGovern on how content edits can literally save lives. I co-wrote that article, I’ll add a link to my copy of on this blog, as for some reason it’s not live in its original location any more. – All this does beg the question, perhaps there’s something wrong with the naming and defining part? Does it properly say what it does on the tin? No, it seems to me. Is ‘content design’, in fact, a jargon term? Is this making things harder for all the content folk out there, advocating, sketching and typing at the digital coalface, and in fact getting laid off it? It might be. This is why the discipline name is more than semantics. As previously mentioned, I’m #TeamInformationDesign – and yes we need t-shirts. I must re-check on tickets for the Information Design conference Caroline Jarrett mentioned to me. – For people currently looking for a new role, please feel free to browse my Content design interview questions article, which includes an outline simple CV template. Portfolios seem to be a requirement too these days. – T-shirts were again a theme in terms of their capability as a wearable display for quotes from developers on what they thought about content design, before they’d worked with content designers. This brilliant piece of “real talk” interdisciplinary research was curated and facilitated by Mary Sabotkoski. – Relatedly, Torrey Podmajersky is talking about content design for developers in July, and Mary shared the excellent talk she gave on content design meets engineering in 2022. I love the content designer-developer relationship when it happens. Perhaps we do just need to proliferate content design more, rather than iterating it with new label text. I gave a shout out to excellent developers I’ve collaborated with in the past. (Side note: with designers sometimes barring us from the prototype, perhaps going direct to dev is The Way). – Loved Megan Legawiec’s work on empty states, and Co-op’s work on communicating research findings – thanks Jane McFayden for bringing it to my attention. – Thrilled to discover there is a band called CAKE, and they are the folk who put out ‘Going the Distance’. Shared for some Tuesday energy, after watching the Paris marathon at the weekend – inspiration from those hand tap cardboard signs that the runners did actually enjoy interacting with, despite the 26.4 mile course. – And in wrapping up, a little bird suggested I put out a regular newsletter. Perhaps this will evolve into that… Don’t forget to check out the Cake Design Objet D’Week series too, where we probe an actual 3D object (I know!!!) to see how user-centred it is.
Design objet d’week, 15 March 2024: dragon drainpipes What is is What we’re looking at is a drainpipe, decorated to look like a dragon. The mouth open in a roar, lovely gold bandings diagonally all the way up the black-painted iron pipe. 2024 is the Chinese Year of The Dragon. This one was created circa 1800. We found it on the National Bank of France building in the 17th arrondisement. How it’s user-centred Well, it isn’t terribly, but it is an example of a delightful union of form and function. William Morris said: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be beautiful or believe to be useful”. Or in this case, have nothing attached to your bank that isn’t. Why else we like it (is it sustainable? accessible?) A joy to walk past. Made of metal not plastic, and has lasted rather a long time so I think that ticks sustainability. Can I get one? No. You could commission a similar style drainpipe. Or decorate your existing ones.
Assertion of moral rights: statement of authorship of the Readability Guidelines wiki by Lizzie Bruce “I assert my moral rights and publicly state that I authored the Readability Guidelines wiki www.readabilityguidelines.co.uk, associated book, and reprinted book.” – Elizabeth Bruce (known as Lizzie Bruce)More detail may follow.
Weeknotes 28 March 2024 Slightly early this week, as we have a symmetrical line up of bank holidays fast approaching. It’s #weeknotes no 5. Drafted 4 new articles for DACS’ brilliant new advice section for artists, creators, beneficiaries and art market professionals. DACS are currently celebrating 40 years of licensing art, and I was a little bowled over to actually be working on topic matter directly connected with one of my favourite music groups. In an effort towards marketing, last week if you remember I’d set up a Spring offer for my UCD and content design courses: half-price when you buy both together, at a total of £47.50 (with SPRING24). Sophie Dennis reposted commenting: “Is this the best value UX and content design training on the market? Quite possibly… ” Thank you Sophie! A Digital Services Manager from a local council asked if the offer coupon code applied when you buy the both the training courses for a colleague: so I’ve set up a matching code for that too now: SPRING24C. Thank you for the idea! With the marketing hat still on, I made my business’s offer messaging stronger on the website homepage. And repurposed the About page content as ‘Why you should choose to work with us’. Missed the event, but absorbed the excellent slide content from Caroline Jarrett’s talk on Using surveys to uncover audience insights for Scott Abel’s ‘Coffee and content’. Cheekily reached out to him to see if Cake may also go well with those. Shared the LocalGov Drupal site on the Cake Content Consultancy page on LinkedIn for insights, news and jobs. The site has really come on since I lasted looked! Localgovdrupal.org is for councils, by councils – who share, code, research, resources and more. Such a great idea. Interesting chats about user need assumptions at prototype stage. My input was that at least desktop user research should be carried out when there are several user tasks to prioritise. “You are not the user”, so it’s hard to judge what is the most important thing for someone who is not you, even if you really think you know. Understanding the proportions of users with different priorities takes research – sometimes these may change depending on other variables. Plus, business goals and ethical design need to factor in too. Enjoyed Beatrix Holland’s blog post on The Value of Cospa for Rice Press. ‘Cospa’ is, as she puts it, one of the best Japanese portmanteau words – of combined katakana that is, as it combines 2 foreign (non-Japanese) words. I particularly like the publication’s translation layout choice of dual languages paragraph by paragraph. Found a website listing museums open in the evening in Paris and enjoyed the Mode et Sport/Fashion and Sport exhibition. Amusingly, what I was wearing matched what was deemed appropriate for a 1930s tennis outfit (a dress, almost to the knee, with a cardigan). Happy Easter, chicks! 🐥Lizzie, Lead consultant, Cake Content Consultancy
Cognitive terms Good recent discussions with Jason Grant and Adam Silver about cognitive challenges that face many users, and terms for defining these, led me to give this topic some deeper thought. Can you be temporarily or situationally cognitively impaired? I believe you can. Your thought processes, and ability to think, can be affected by illness and health conditions (cancer, long covid, ME, MS), shock, emotions (grief, euphoria), loneliness, hunger – all sorts of things. Many of those experiences can be temporary or situational – your cognitive ability improves again in time. But perhaps the word ‘impairment’ is wrong, for several reasons. Should we use a clearer word than ‘cognitive’, for example in the phrase ‘cognitive overload’? I’m not sure. ‘Too much mental effort’ has been somewhat co-opted by teens wielded to their smartphones, and so doesn’t really give enough gravitas to the concept. User groups sometimes talk about it in terms of ‘brain fog’ and ‘spoons’ – this led to my reading up on spoon theory on MEpedia.org, and understanding how spoon theory can be applied to executive functioning and focus from psychologist Dr Neff’s article on Spoon Theory For Autism and ADHD: The Neurodivergent Spoon Drawer.Maybe ‘thought processing overload’… or as Steve Krug put it so well, just don’t make any users have to think. Design so that informed choices are not difficult to make. Book recommendation Don’t Make Me Think Revisited, by Steve Krug – available via Steve’s website, Sensible.com. You can also get the original Don’t Make Me Think book secondhand from World of Books.
Weeknotes 22 March 2024 A double whammy for my #3 and #4 weeknotes. These combined notes cover 11 March to today. It’s been a fortnight of connections, maintenance and steady progress. Content style and CMS editing guide drafted for DACS: this is one of various content services I offer. Excited to be continuing working them, designing further visual arts copyright information for the recently launched new website. Very pleased to connect on LinkedIn with Charlie Fountaine, have been a follower for a while, wonderful posts always – and I particularly celebrated their recent post on maintenance and continuous improvement. Grateful to Caroline Jarrett for pointing me towards Jared Spool’s Beans and Noses article, in the wake of a situation where Sankey’s level 3 diplomacy had to be abandoned, since accessibility and audience reach was at stake… Reconnected with Anastasia Sobova – a brand specialist from Ukraine and incredible person. I worked with Anastasia a couple of years ago on a project helping startups. Her energy/spirit is incredible – look at this can-do attitude, fundraising for drone reconnaissance. Making good progress on recycling local gov service design pattern designs, with help from Andy Bennett at Register Dynamics. Made a plea on LinkedIn for more Heads of Service Design on organisational boards, represented in SMT and becoming CEOs. Spoke out for accessibility: how it’s in the words we use on our sites and for our services and products, as well as the visual design and the interaction points. Great discussions with Jason Grant and Adam Silver on terms relating to cognitive challenges – read the dedicated blog post. I’m migrating my GatherContent articles to the Cake Content website, and will do my best to link to the sites of authors who’re publishing their articles on their sites. Relatedly, clarity sort of gained on the GatherContent blog’s future – it IS shutting down, but will be archived, though only in part as many live articles are being migrated to another platform, and… well, you can find out the intricacies on the Cake Content Consultancy LinkedIn post comments. Sent live a Spring offer on my pathway courses – people can buy both together for half-price, right through until Summer. Also did a spot of upkeep and Spring tidying on my website in general. It’s always satisfying, until the next time you do maintenance, and are shocked at what you previously thought was good to go live. Enjoying French cinemas; my French language level is still basic though (despite taking yoga classes in French) so I stuck to VO English. The acronym use led to an amusing, but potentially money-losing for cinemas, misunderstanding of mine between Voice Over, and the correct – with complete opposite meaning – Version Originale. Others have also been left wondering. Planning a second, and third in the series of ‘Design objet d’week’: next up is dragon drainpipes!
Why most design systems are broken, and how to fix them Originally published on the GatherContent blog, 4 May 2020.I’m going to get straight to the point. A lot of design systems leave content out. That’s why they are broken. They might include a bit of microcopy, but apart from that they largely ignore content design considerations. This is detrimental to product design – and ultimately the user experience. A design system without content guidance is missing vital parts. It’s an engine without a carburettor. A football team with half its players on the bench. An underground system with no escalators. A balloon without air. You can’t complete any product design puzzle with pieces missing. You need to use all available tools to work it out: research, guidance, knowledge, skills, user testing. The design system, your how-to manual, your point of reference, falls under guidance and knowledge. It is something you can lean on to make the best possible first attempt at designing a new product or improving an existing one. If you leave content out of the system, you’re drastically reducing its efficacy. Without content, can it really even be called a design system? Possible explanations for why content gets left out It’s puzzling why design systems so often don’t consider content, but it might be down to one of these things:1) design and content teams working, workshopping and meeting up separately2) a backdated view or misunderstanding of content as being “just words” 3) feeling of threat about content design encroaching on traditional design territory Taking these in reverse, hopefully it’s not often the third reason: which is not only counter-intuitive, it also breaks many elements of “design thinking”, like: be radical – question status quo be fluid, flexible and adaptable try unusual approaches to see what works Moving on to the second reason, many content professionals now have painstakingly described: why not just anyone can write what content design is the range of tasks content people perform the benefits of including content professionals early on in projects There’s not a lot I can add here, that I and others have not already said several times! But looking more closely at the issue from the perspective of siloed teams could highlight a cause that comes with its own, very simple solution. I’ll delve further into that shortly. What a design system that includes content looks like A 360 degree design system could include: Design principles Design components Content design patterns and modules Content style guide Brand guidelines: logo and artwork usage, typography Brand guidelines: tone of voice Best practice resources How content boosts your design system Content patterns Established patterns allow content formations that work well: clear, usable, accessible wording and presentation, to be reused. You can create a library of modular content with: small elements: for example how to write date ranges, presentation styles: for example how to present examples and quotes, how to style bullet point lists longer form reusable content: for example paragraphs on an organisation’s stance on a particular issue Content patterns can also offer a blueprint for multiple content items of the same type. They reuse the same word structures, so they highlight unique content, allowing easy comparison of similar items, like course details, or museum object particulars. Read my article about content patterns, with practical examples. Content style guide Content patterns and modules can be demonstrated contextually and sewn in with design components. However, it’s also worth also including an indexed, quick reference content style guide where people can easily look something up. Such as, if it’s OK to use “eg” or better to write out “for example” in full. It’s the second by the way, as “eg” is an abbreviation of a Latin term, which is a double no in terms of readability! What’s more, some screenreading software may read it out to sound like “egg”. Similarly, you might wonder whether to put “10%” or “10 per cent”. The second is always better for accessibility, but again it’s Latin and could exclude low literacy and non-fluent users. So your style guide might recommend using “a tenth”, “10 out of every 100” or to state the exact stats. Watch Rob Mills’ webinar on creating a content style guide. Brand guidelines While we’re putting everything together in one handy place, let’s not forget branding. Brand guidelines will cover use of logo and brand artwork, plus tone of voice. Tone of voice, for any brand, is not usually monotone. There’s likely to be a range of tones for different circumstances. You might have an overall tone which is friendly but informative, or, say, fun and helpful. Some brands seem to have a tone which is “eager to please”, some are purposefully silly. But if a customer has not paid a bill, or you are talking to someone about a problem they’re having with your product or service, many general brand tones of voice would need to be dialled down. Or you may want to use a different, separate tone for serious communications. By including tone of voice in your design system, with examples of when to dial different tones up or down, you’ll make the design system not just more whole but more useful. The beauty of including style and brand guidelines in your system is that:1) you take away the requirement for the user, say a staff designer, to look in 3 different places before they can create an online form, ad or social media post 2) the whole, now complete, design system can be styled consistently, following the advice and expertise of all 3 teams: design, content, marketing Watch Lauren Pope’s webinar on building a brilliant brand tone of voice. Best practice resources No matter how comprehensive your design system is, there will always be scenarios you don’t cover. Including a few design endorsed further resources to reference will stop your users finding and using something you wouldn’t recommend.So for example you could reference Nielsen Norman Group’s usability research and Content Design London’s Readability Guidelines. How to fix your design system: work together, content with design Currently there’s a lot of usage by brands of the phrase “we’re all in this together”, referring to the pandemic we’re experiencing. Countless brand social media posts and emails to customers are deploying these words in an attempt to reach out to their customer base during a crisis. It would do organisations well to remember this phrase, and turn it in on themselves. Design, stripped to the basics, is how things are presented to the outside world by an organisation. Yet this has been splintered into many disparate parts that often do not work together. You might have a design system, but the marketing team might not use it. They might right now be sending out centred-text jpegs to announce their operational changes in overly formal, complex language! Your organisation might have a style guide, and advocate for clear language in it, but the developers might not read it. Co-create your design system Work together. Design alongside content. Start by making a joint Design System. Sit everyone together in the same area of the same building, or book out the largest meeting room you have and work on it there for as long as it takes. Invite marketing to give input at joint workshops and to attend and give feedback at regular progress presentations. Have a proper, all-encompassing design system. Otherwise you’re just adding another thing to a design network. And even if you think you’ve clearly signposted the style guide or the brand artwork rules from your system, some users might not realise there’s essential design guidance to absorb and follow elsewhere. Share knowledge through training and open feedback sessions Give marketing teams design training and vice versa. Hold a cross-organisational quiz on the style guide. Make sure everyone understands why different teams advocate as they do. If someone understands the logic behind something they’re less likely to think their opinion is superior to expertise from another team that’s based on studies and known best practice. Invite other teams to question and feedback, so that they don’t simply assume they can override guidance and publish something that is not consistent with it just because of their own professional take. Keep it up Then keep working together. You’ve made a product as a whole team. Apply that pattern to other work and ways of working. I’ve worked in Agile teams where members are from different design sub-disciplines, for example content design, service design, interaction design, graphic design. The organisation had great training programmes and regular sharing of learnings within design communities. But therein lay the problem. It was communities not community. The design sub-communities were very separate. Interaction designers didn’t come to content lunch and learns or in-house conferences. Content designers rarely attended service design meetups, unless they could slip in. Mix it up. Space might be an issue. So you could hold a series of the same meeting or workshop, with the same proportion of different types of designer at each and then share what came out of each in a digital presentation.With everyone moving to online working, meetings and webinars while we work from home, it’s the ideal time to invite other disciplines to your team’s shared learnings session. You might like to read my related articles: Why multi-disciplinary teams are good and The myth of digital transformation. Design with content Although I’ve been saying this for a long time, thankfully I am not the only one saying it! Rachel McConnell at Clearleft and Sarah Richards at Content Design London have been banging this drum too. And Lou Downe, ex-GDS Head of Service Design, advocates for an end to end approach to service design. Find out more through the keep learning links at the bottom of this article. A final word on design systems: test, test and test again I feel like design systems should come with a warning. Something like: Caution: you still need to do usability testing! Good design is about communicating and collecting information clearly. Every piece of information is different. Every design situation is different. Having a design system isn’t an invitation to just peel and stick. You need to test your prototype in situ. What works in one context might not work in another. This was heavily stressed by Tim Paul, GDS Head of Interaction Design, at February’s open to the public Gov Design meetup #14: Design systems. Takeaways Without content, the system is broken. Support a holistic design system, with everything in one place. Work together with other design disciplines and production teams. Test your designs. Keep learning Why your design system should include content, Rachel McConnell Clearleft’s new Content by Design conference Good Services book by Lou Downe 🏷️ Tagged as: Branding, Collaboration, Content Operations, Content Strategy, design, Style Guide, UX, Websites
Design objet d’week, 8 March 2024: user-centred soap Environmentally-friendly, no-slip soap What it is, and where we found it: What we are looking at here in this picture is the yellow soap, and crucially its holder. This week’s object was found at the lovely co-working space in Paris that I’m working from, La Canopée. Why it’s highly usable: This is the best everyday object design I’ve seen in quite a while. Form and function beautifully realised. It’s so usable; you just wash your hands and soap them. No slippery bar, no unpressable presser. Why else we like it: Minimal, easily biodegradable packaging; I didn’t see it but I’d hazard a guess it came in cardboard rather than plastic*. Excellent use of space, does not use up any basin surface area, and is at a height just right for the task. Not to mention cheerful, dare I say delightful, to look at! *have checked, yes it did.History: From what we can gather, it is or was a feature on school bathroom walls. Can I get one? Yes you can, from a shop on Montmartre, or choose from a vast array of wall-mounted holders on the French Soaps website. We’re going to, for sure!
17 tips to get content people in the room, for non-content people You’ve figured out that content design and strategy is more than a magic wand wave of words. And realised you’re not able to write those yourself, in a concise, scannable, user-friendly, clear language, accessible way either. Maybe you’ve read a book or heard a talk or done a course, and realised there’s a lot more too it than you’d thought. However you found it out, you now know you definitely need a content person for your digital product or service from early on. The next step But how are you going to get content in the room, at the table, contributing valuable learnings and getting stuck in? How are you going to convince the Holders Of The Budget Purse Strings that content expertise is a necessity, not a nice to have? That content adds value: for the user, for the organisation – for its current reputation, and its future success. Ideas Well, here are some ideas to understand and support content design and strategy: 1. Advocate for content expertise whenever you can. 2. Mention in advance at project planning meetings that you’ll need a content person for the Discovery phase of a product or service’s design. And that it’d be worthwhile having content strategy input before then. 3. Go to content show and tells at your workplace, if an option, to learn more about what content can do. 4. Listen to content talks and read articles. 5. Talk to content designers and strategists about their work. 6. Shadow a content person, if you have that learning option in your workplace. 7. Attend content design training to better understand its processes and the skills, techniques and knowledge it requires. 8. Tell your colleagues about what you learnt. Give a short summary on your internal comms channel. Bonus: you can practice your new skills by doing that. 9. Look out on your organisations’s Slack, Teams, Yammer, Intranet forum or other organisation-preferred channel for any internal discussion on business goals and strategies. Tell them about something called content strategy… 10 . Suggest they get a content strategy, if they have not got one. 11. Request to borrow a content designer from another team for a couple of days, to show your programme lead or studio manager the value they can add. That is, if it’s an option and their own team can spare them. If no in-house content designer is available, bring in a freelancer for this. 12. Ask a content designer to come to your team meeting, to showcase how content can help. For example, get them to demonstrate effective error messages to your developers. Then you’ve got the tech people’s support behind you. 13. Talk to the UX designers, interaction designers, visual designers, service designers. Ask them who creates the textual content? I’ve known designers, and developers, to be hugely relieved when they realise there’s someone else who can craft that bit. That bit being the bit users read, react to, get direction from, are reassured by, know what to do next on account of. 14. If someone holds the view that “anyone can write”, teach them that content design is not just writing. Ask them how they would present information about budgeting for university, for example. Then suggest a calculator tool, with fields for various incomings and outgoings, which can be used accessibly or comes with a clear language equivalent. Let them know that is content design. 15. Help them understand that, in fact, not everyone can write good digital content. Ask them to write up a dense legal paragraph clearly, and scannably. You’re bound to have some handy source material in your organisation’s terms and conditions. 16. Show them that content is the glue that holds everything together. Take a screenshot of any web page and photo-edit out all the titles, subheads, body text, calls to action, radio button text, microcopy. 17. Show them examples of sites with awful, user-unfriendly content. And ask them to try to perform tasks on them. Sit back and wait for the exasperation. Cake training We offer online pathway courses into content design and user-centred design, plus short courses on content accessibility and writing for web.And, we can recommend content designers, senior content designers, lead content designers, content strategists, and heads of content.
6 essential things for businesses to know about content design Businesses run on content.Earlier this year we workshopped 6 things content designers would love stakeholders to understand. Here’s a non-sector specific version, available free on SlideShare. Please share wherever it’s useful. 6 essential things for businesses to know about content design from LizzieBruce
New book: ‘What do we do in this room?’ – optimise your living space, with simple techniques Optimise the space you live in. Learn user experience (UX) design techniques to apply at home, to improve the day-to-day experience of where you live. Ask: “What do we do in this room? And is there a better way to do it?” Buy in print or PDF, from £6.50 – from Blurb This interactive manual equips you to be your own interior designer. You’ll systematically research room use, prioritise, and plan the design of your room layouts around what you really need to use the space for.It’s for anyone who wants to make efficient use of space, and could be particularly useful for people moving into their own place for the first time. For every room you’ll find: universal task suggestions: over 100 in total essential, and added comfort, requirements space to add your own tasks and needs Includes design advice for: home offices toddlers and pets multifunctional solutions sustainability accessibility task flows Along the way you’ll gain an understanding of time and motion theory, learn to factor in task flows for optimal efficiency, and be supported to create your own floor plans and 3D models. Lizzie combines a digital design career of over 2 decades with interior spatial design training from Chelsea College of Art and the National Design Academy. Mariela has extensive professional experience of human-centred spatial design. Buy in print or PDF, from £9.95 – from Blurb
Content designer interview questions – plus what to ask your interviewers Here are some interview topics and questions you might encounter, plus what you could ask the interviewers, a simple CV structure and pointers for stepping into content design. For each topic I flag what to consider and provide links to relevant modules from the Cake Design Studio content design and UCD e-learning. These could be a helpful springboard – but remember interviewers are looking for real world context. Demonstrating how you overcame challenges and how you showed pragmatism in coping with, for example, budget and scope constraints will generally go down well. Comments are open on this post – please add any more interview questions, topics and considerations that might be helpful for the community. Content design pathway course User-centred design pathway course Interview topics and questions 1. User needs What is meant by a ‘user need’? How would you describe a ‘user need’?How do you discover user needs?How do user needs relate to content design? How do user needs relate to page structure and information architecture?How would a content designer check that their content meets user needs? Consider: Needs versus wants, user stories, job stories, acceptance criteria, user research, language research, analytics, content hierarchy, page sketching, task-based content, topic grouping. Prepare: User needs: meaning and design purpose module 🍰 2. Content accessibility and usability What are 3 essentials for accessible content? What factors come into content accessibility?In what ways can a content designer make web and digital content more usable?Can you tell us about a website or app you’ve come across recently which was not usable? How could you improve this with content design?Do you have any examples of how you have improved content accessibility in a past role?How would you make the case for content accessibility and usability? Consider: Text alternatives, clear language, readability, legibility, literacy, button size, font, tech, non-flashing images, user research, situational, temporary and permanent disability, WCAG 2.1, Equality Act, accessibility is usability, social model of disability, stats, reaching the widest audience and customer base. Prepare: Content accessibility an introduction – FREE module 🍰Content usability basics module 🍰 3. Language research How do you make decisions on which words to use in your content?What language research methods do you use?What would you say are the differences between optimising content for (your own) users and optimising content for search-engines? Humans use search engines, so why shouldn’t an SEO-focused approach be the default? Consider: Clear language, readability, user research, literacy, audience and customer base, location, context, jargon, user needs and motivations, Google Trends, Answer the public, Google Search Console, SEM Rush, keywords, metadata, user interviews, user feedback, help desk data. Prepare: Content findability module 🍰 4. Content inclusivity How do you approach designing inclusive content?What are some important considerations for inclusive design? Consider: Diverse team, diverse user research participants, representation (of broad range of genders, races, cultures, nationalities, ages, abilities, sexualities, class backgrounds, financial situations, relationship statuses, family set ups, more). Prepare: Content inclusivity: an introduction module 🍰Design out bias module 🍰 5. Scaling quality content How would you approach introducing content quality standards across a large site?What processes and methods can support content quality?How would you make it easier for remote, devolved editing teams to adopt content quality standards? Consider: Strategy, governance, tech, team size, central support team, standards, style guidance, content patterns, structured content, user-needs bank, task-based content, consistency, processes, gatekeeping, publication flow, approval flow, localised content, personalisation, customisation, content management systems, training, maintenance, community of practice, content workshops, internal content conferences with remote access. Prepare What is readability? module 🍰Task-based content module 🍰 6. Governance and content strategy What should an organisation’s content strategy cover?What publication models have organisations you’ve worked at used (centralised, devolved, hub and spoke) and what are some advantages and disadvantages of each?Have you had any experience developing content standards?How have you gone about engaging content owners in the past? Consider Content creation, content ownership, maintenance, consistency, accessibility, asset library, style guidance, content review, factual sign off, content management system, publication flow, responsibility, standards, show and tell, stats, analytics, presentation. Prepare Content usability basics module 🍰 7. Working with stakeholders How do you engage stakeholders and subject experts in the content design process?What approaches do you take when a subject expert is unhappy about their content being changed? Consider Show and tells, pair writing, presentations, best practice, competitor/sector examples, readability, clear language, how people read online, task-based content, user needs. Prepare Pair writing a content item 🍰Content usability basics module 🍰User needs: meaning, and design purpose module 🍰 8. Advocating for content design and UCD How would you explain content design to someone who had not heard of it before? Same question for user-centred design.What are 3 things you would like someone new to content design to remember about it?What activities have you been involved in previously where the aim was to engage other teams with content design processes?Have you ever needed to convince a budget holder to invest in user research? How did you go about it? Consider Show and tells, blog post shared in all-staff email or featured as internal news item, championing content design to directors as well as subject experts and service teams, community of practice, demonstrating uplift, before and after examples, value, ROI, explaining what content design is, user needs, usability, accessibility, stats, best practice examples, presentations, guidance, sharing training, recommending books. Prepare Content accessibility an introduction – FREE module 🍰Content usability basics module 🍰Design out bias module 🍰User needs: meaning, and design purpose module 🍰 9. Return on investment, success indicators How have you shown the value of content in a previous role?What measurements and indicators have you used to show uplift in user satisfaction with content? Consider Fewer complaints, help desk less busy, positive feedback, surveys, user needs acceptance criteria fulfilled, user interviews, representation, accessibility review, analytics show page visits to previously unfound content, more conversions, completed transactions, quicker user journeys. Prepare Content findability module 🍰Design centred on users: an introduction 🍰 10. Collaborating with other disciplines What are your experiences of working in a multidisciplinary team?How do you communicate with user researchers, visual designers and developers on a project?What is the most useful thing you have learnt from another discipline and how do you apply it to content design?How have you collaborated with service teams, project owners, subject experts and other stakeholders? Consider Daily stand ups, video calls, team meetings, talking to them, retros, show and tells, user research analysis sessions, asking questions, understanding the offline service experience, presentations, lunch and learn, question and answer sessions. Prepare Why multi-disciplinary teamwork works 🍰Pair writing a content item 🍰Content inclusivity: an introduction 🍰 Content design pathway course User-centred design pathway course “Have you got any questions for us?” What is the digital content team size?How long have you been practising user-centred design at [organisation name]?How on board with content design processes are the content owners or subject experts?Do you have content owners who approve content changes, or subject experts with factual sign off?How often do you do user research interviews or usability testing?Do you design iteratively? What is the content maintenance cycle like?What opportunities would there be for me to progress in a content design role at [organisation name]?Do you hold daily stand ups and regular retros? References for the UCD maturity of an organisation include: The Danish Design Ladder NNg 6 levels of design maturity NHS Digital’s UCD maturity model You will have very different opportunities and challenges as a content designer at different stages of UCD maturity of an organisation. Your CV structure Here is a simple outline that you can adapt. You do not need to include your gender, age, marital status or address on your CV. Profile (1 or 2 lines)SkillsSoftware and toolsProfessional trainingQualificationsPublications (blog posts, articles, papers, books)AwardsWork history (could be more than 1 page)Languages (if relevant to role position this section at top, for example after or within Skills)Interests Presenting your work history If you are you continuing in the same career direction and building on previous roles, you can present this chronologically as: recent: brief narrative mid: bullet points older: only title and dates But if you are changing direction, put focus on transferrable skills and relevant experiences by presenting your experience by relevancy, which could be non-chronological, so: relevant: brief narrative less relevant: bullet points not very relevant: only title and dates Stepping into content design and user-centred design If you have not worked specifically in content design before, there are many transferrable skills you might have. 14 of us offer career tips in this Working in Content article, including examples of how to best frame your existing experience. The UK civil service is a very good way to increase your experience in user-centred design. It offers design training, and occasionally has junior role openings available. Some digital agencies offer salaried academies where you can learn as you earn and graduate into client work. These come with the opportunity to meet highly skilled , UCD-experienced staff, work on great projects.Lauren Pope, content strategist, and Adam Silver, interaction designer, have excellent newsletters and there are many great #ContentDesign, #ServiceDesign, #UserResearch and other #UCD folk to follow on LinkedIn and Bluesky. Career path You may also like to explore the content designer career path and official skillsets from the UK Government Digital Service, the organisation where the discipline originated. Content design career progression can be from associate to head of, but you may end up stepping into another user-centred design discipline, or may come from one.Working in content design and strategy, you may frequently need to advocate for content design and user-centred design. You’re welcome to re-use my 6 essential things for businesses to know about content design presentation just reference to Cake Design Studio as your source. Good luck! Image credit: Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com.
Digital guides and glossaries Guidance for user-centred design, digitisation, digital transformation and customer experience design from a range of sectors. Arts and heritage Digitising collections – Collections Trust with Culture 24Digitisation: A glossary of terms – Collections Trust with Culture 24 Charity Digital Framework – Shelter Education Creating accessible digital content – University of the Arts LondonDesign principles – University of EdinburghWriting for web – University of Bath Government Design System – GDSContent design – GDS Health Digital style guide – NHS Digital How we talk – NHS Digital Retail and services Experience is not just digital – Co-op Tech Design resources – AppleDevelopers site – GoogleInclusive design – Microsoft
Build digital content confidence, with modular learning Designing products that respond to the needs of users is now recognised as the way forward by many organisations. But only a few have central support for a big training spend. Here we look at alternative options, and introduce our concise, clear, modular online lessons. Barriers you may be experiencing Time ⏰ Available time in the working day is also often scarce. A team I was supporting recently as part of a consultancy role were strongly discouraged by their line manager from attending content design training, even though at the same time the user-centred design lead was strongly encouraging them to attend. We had to do it by stealth, and still only 1 of the 3 editors came. I left the client with a re-usable training presentation and resource links. When business as usual is seen as more important, upskilling is hard. Money 💵 Design training is often very expensive. If your organisation is not able, or does not want, to pay for it, professional development can become unaffordable for many. This means it can exclude people. A happy, regular customer for my new lessons is someone whose funds couldn’t stretch to other previously existing options. While we talk about removing bias from our designs, and recruiting inclusively, we sometimes forget about the privilege of being able to afford to move into the profession in the first place. Learning solutions currently available Traditional low cost paths 🧑🏫 There’s an excellent free Introduction to Content Design course from GDS on FutureLearn, which I always recommend – but not everyone can fit in the 16 hours, even over 4 weeks. Or, in my firsthand experience, they’re just curious and don’t want to commit so much time to learning about content design. There are some brilliant practical books, like ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Don Norman, ‘Content Design’ by Sarah Winters and ‘Design for Cognitive Bias’ by David Dylan Thomas. You can pick up tips from Twitter, conference talk recordings, articles, blog posts and podcasts. New – curated, online building blocks of training 🟨 To learn using a curated framework, specifically aimed at beginners, improvers and refreshers, at your own pace and whenever fits your schedule, try our new clear, concise, modular user-centred design and content design lessons. Cake Bitesize modules: high quality at a very low cost Our modules are short – which is partly why we’re calling them Cake Bitesize. They tend to have 8 units and a test. And, while everyone learns at different speeds, they should take on average 15 to 30 minutes to complete. They are low-cost. Each lesson is no more than £5. Some are less, or free. And, they are high quality. They distill 17 years of user-centred content experience, across all sectors and project sizes. From Mastercard to Joy’s Yoga. Lesson content creator ✏️ Lesson creator Lizzie Bruce was previously a senior content designer for GDS and a content strategy consultant for Content Design London, leading their global Readability Guidelines project and helping develop training. She’s led content projects and teams at RNIB, GWR, Marie Curie, DCMS, Young Minds and Parkinsons’ UK, and helped many more high profile organisations, including University of Cambridge, British Red Cross and John Lewis, through Cake Consultancy Ltd. She has a post-graduate teaching qualification and classroom experience, as well as content design, content usability and content accessibility trainer experience. Benefits of our modular online training Fit to your schedule – a cancelled meeting, when commuting, while your baby sleeps.Learn on mobile, tablet and desktop.Flex the programme for what you need: fill knowledge gaps, follow your curiosity or choose everything.Learn at your own pace: study intensively, or over a longer time.Enjoy clear, concise explanations.Follow a consistent lesson structure across multiple topics.Share an introductory lesson on content design, writing for web, usable content or user-centred design across your team or organisation.Check understanding with the end of lesson test. Explore our e-learning today You can also study various modules together in my content design pathway course. Buy modules and pathway courses View study options
Cake Bitesize lessons: curated building blocks in user-centred design Grab a cuppa, this is a longish read to explain the why, what and who behind our simple e-learning products. Quietly, in the background, over the last months I’ve been creating short, beginners’ lessons in user-centred design. These are online, fit together modularly, and can be studied at the learner’s own pace. 5 of them are ready, which seems enough for a proof of concept. Update 29 September, 2021 – 15 are ready, with 10 available combined into a content design pathway. My lessons are written in clear language. They explain approaches, techniques, principles and processes, and translate terminology. They focus on 1 topic at a time. Most lessons are 8 units and a test, taking on average 20 to 30 minutes to absorb and complete. The idea is they can be fitted into a spare half hour – a cancelled meeting, a lunch break, a bus journey. Oh, and they are highly affordable, at tiny prices like £4 each. Why? In short, because people asked me to, plus I wanted to make high quality, reliable user-centred design learning affordable, easy to access and available in clear language. “Can you give the team a quick summary?” Knowledge around user-centred design is readily available online already. But there are some problems with it. Too much, too long, too expensive, too “Gov”. Googling is overwhelming Self-teach internet searches can be hazardous. How reliable is the source, is it so jargon-stuffed a learner can’t comprehend anything, where can you find just the basics? Google overwhelm is real. And user-centred design professionals are often as unaware of their depth of knowledge – and the learning barrier of our discipline’s own specialist terms – as they are passionate about their subject. Too long, didn’t read So I would send clients a curated list of links, including the excellent Readability Guidelines. I would recommend paid and free courses, like the essential, 16 hours over 4 weeks GDS FutureLearn Introduction to Content Design. I’d tell them about meet ups and talks. But this was not the user need, or perhaps the user want in some cases. They wanted a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation, or a specific area explained, like pair writing, content patterns, information architecture or multi-disciplinary teams on a quick, Zoom chat. Or a manager would say their staff needed to learn how to do content design, and could I please run them through it in a 1 hour session? And can you give everyone else an overview in a 5 minute presentation at the end of the weekly Design team meeting? What you don’t know you don’t know, you don’t know you need to know How do you explain to someone who thinks information architecture skills can be taught through a short presentation that you should start with user needs? How do you illuminate an eager team, without discouraging them, on the fact that content design is vast and intricate, and learning about it will require quite a lot more than 1 hour of their time? The problem was, the people want-it-yesterday level curious about content design and user-centred design, tended not to be in content or design roles themselves, and didn’t have any comprehension of how much goes into design work. They just wanted a quick download of 10 key points. Sometimes on the spot, as the concepts of needing to think and plan, never mind research unique needs, scope and sculpt, were alien to them: a live demo of the very workplace culture issues that Agile, user-centred design sets out to rectify. Supporting staff to learn flexibly, in a way that suits them User-centred design, its techniques, principles and processes, and terminology is a whole new world for beginners, with language of its own. But as the large majority of organisations don’t have formal, user-centred design training for everyone built in, non-design professionals who are curious or need to learn about user-centred design understandably generally want, and need, something that can be fitted into spare time in their schedule, for example: cancelled meetinglunch breakearly startend of day before meeting someone for dinneron parental leave while the baby is napping My answer: a matrix of modules So for my last charity client, a major national organisation with at the time only 1 content designer, I started compiling short, modular, informational Google docs, a process that catalysed me to go on to create my bitesize lessons, just as previous experience leading a team of editors on a commercial website redesign project inspired my writing for web tip cards. Somewhat ironically, to avoid plagiarism I ended up having to re-express myself, again clearly, on clear language (I wrote of all the Content Design London Readability Guidelines, based on collaboratively sourced usability evidence). These Google docs were interlinked, so that people could learn about the topic they were aware they needed to understand more on, for example writing for web, and through onward links uncover other areas, like language research for SEO, usability and inclusivity. They were destined for the client’s intranet or MS Teams site, where they would be served up under their own branding. Further propellants While this sub-heading has a slight whiff of the miscellaneous folder, these are the other, important reasons behind my drive to create these lessons. Little or no user-centred design culture Often content designers find themselves fresh in a new job or contract, ready to use their skills and “do content design” but find no-one knows what it involves – crucially no-one understands the infrastructure needed, like budget, and stakeholder time for: user research, pair writing, content crits, show and tells, retros and more. It’s well known among design professionals that user-centred design is a team sport. But so few organisations know how to play it. And it’s well documented that when CEOs, stakeholders, subject experts and managers understand and advocate for user-centred design and Agile, it’s much easier for user-centred designers to do their jobs, ideally working in multi-disciplinary teams with user and stakeholder involvement through the design process. Unfortunately, the majority of organisation These lessons aim to support people in all different roles at an organisations to learn about user-centred design, in a very non-intimidating, user-friendly way. That’s for Gov Unfortunately the GDS user-centred design resources, their FutureLearn content design course and the GOV.UK A to Z of style are too often seen as “too government-y” and sadly, and fairly irritatingly, felt not relevant or appropriate by many commercial, charity or higher ed clients. Despite my highly recommending them, with strong reference to their proven usability-based approach to style. Explaining that Government Digital Service outputs are a publicly funded digital resource for everyone to make use of made no difference either. And it’s not just me, other content strategists have reported the same experience. Do you do training on X? At the same time, I had a steady trickle of LinkedIn messages, emails and Twitter DMs asking if I could give a training session on different, very specific areas of content design or user-centred design. About the Cake Bitesize lessons So, all this led me to think, what if I create some lessons in the basics, that are short enough and affordable enough not to put anyone off? In clear language and focused on 1 topic at at a time. Essentially, I reviewed all the blockers to learning about user-centred design and attempted to clear them. Modular Each to-the-point, concisely written lesson stands on its own, but is also part of a series. They are curated, clear language building blocks, enabling learners to upskill, refresh or fill in any gaps in their user-centred design knowledge. For example, you might start with an introduction to user-centred design, and go on to the introduction to content design. Or you may buy and bookmark the glossary of user-centred design terms (by the way, it’s only £1). Or you might go straight to a lesson on user journey mapping or content findability. When more lessons are live I will publish suggested routes through the topics depending on area of interest, and will look to make them available as bundles or a complete collection – someone has already expressed an interest in buying them all at once. Affordable It is very important to me to make these lessons as affordable as possible. We don’t all have the privilege of disposable income, and even though professional development is an investment, it’s one that not everyone can afford. Not everyone will have an employer paying for their training either: many of us are freelance, self-employed, on zero hour contracts, or unemployed. The other major reason for the low prices are to encourage people to try them out. And if they like it, to try out some more! I was thinking in terms of literally snackable content: learn in your lunch hour, for the price of a meal deal. While the prices are tiny – the first 5 are at £0, £1 and £4 – the quality is high. Format Usually, lessons have 6 to 8 units plus a short end of lesson comprehension test. Glossaries of terms, and techniques and processes lessons, have different numbers of units. Learners work through at their own pace, which of course differs for everyone but I estimate an average of 20 to 30 minutes is needed for each lesson. Lessons focus on 1 topic at a time, starting with an overview and drilling down into further need-to-know detail. The lesson content is text-based, with examples. Occasionally informational images are included, when this happens the meaning is explained in the main lesson text. So far there has not been a need for video but this may change! If so it will be captioned and a transcript provided. DuoLingo is a big inspiration for the lesson series, and the lessons, created with WordPress Courses software, are easy to access and use on mobile, as well as desktop and tablet. Audience A broad audience of potential learners is catered for, in an effort to increase broader understanding of user-centred design within organisations. career changers and progressorsstudentsdesign roles without specialist content design and readability knowledgenon-design rolesteam leaders, managers, delivery managers, product ownersstakeholders, CEOs and other budgeting decision makersanyone curious about user-centred design or content design About the creator Teaching background I’m no stranger to creating lessons, courses and educational resources. As well as giving content design and writing for web training through Cake Consultancy to government, charity and commercial clients, I’ve helped Content Design London develop accessible content training, written the Readability Guidelines, written a practical how-to book on user-centred design for intranets, sold many sets of writing for web tip cards, have a post-grad teaching qualification and taught English abroad. User-centred design career My 17 years in user-centred design started at a digitally advanced local council in 2003. From the very beginning of my career, I was training subject experts in writing for web. Since then, among others, I’ve worked for GDS, 8 government departments, Content Design London, John Lewis, Great Western Railway, Post Office, Cambridge University, RNIB and Scope. Clear language expertise My experience as a content designer and strategist – explaining and presenting dense information and complex concepts in concise, clear content – equips me to create very user-friendly beginner, refresher and improver lesson content. Lessons available now The full list of planned lessons is slowly but surely getting populated with hyperlinks for lessons that are ready. With a number now live, it feels a good time to test out their usefulness and popularity as a proof of content. So far, 5 lessons are available, including a free one: Introduction to user-centred design £4User needs: meaning, and design purpose £4Defining shared project vocabulary £4Glossary of user-centred design terms £120+ user research techniques FREE Please try them out, and if you think they have value do share them. You can keep up to date with Cake Bitesize lessons on Twitter at @CakeBitesize, and I regularly post about them from @CakeContent too. If you find the lessons useful, I’d be really grateful for a review, tweet or LinkedIn post about them. Endorsements from learners are extremely helpful. Support the user-centred design bitesize lessons cause with a coffee, to go with all the cake! ☕ I imagine that many of you will not need these lessons yourself, but you may well see how your work culture could benefit from other roles using these lessons. If that’s you, please consider supporting me with a coffee to keep things going. And if you know of any tech for good grants I could apply to for continuing to create these affordable, inclusive, easily-accessible lessons, do please let me know!
Further reference links from ‘Task-based intranet content’ My book ‘Task-based intranet content: a step by step guide to user-centred design’ gives multiple external references for your onward research. Since they can’t be linked to from a print copy, to make it easier for you than Googling them all, here’s a list of links chapter by chapter. Thanks to Lisa Riemers for the suggestion! Chapter 1. Planning 1.2 Timeline External guidance: Google spreadsheet rough exampleExternal guidance: How to make a Gantt chart in Excel, Officetimeline.com Main stages of the project development External guidance: GOV.UK guides to agile working 1.3 Case studies GovIntranet demo site GovIntranet demo siteGovIntranet help site Intranet Diary Oxford City Council, Intranet Diary postKew Gardens, Intranet Diary postThe Forestry Commission, Intranet Diary postNesta, Internet Diary postCayman Islands Government, Intranet Diary post Barnardo’s Inside.Barnardo’s intranetInside.Barnardo’s: The intranet without walls, Barnardo’s Medium article Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) CIPR Inside Citizens Advice Making data policies easy to understand, Citizens Advice article on Medium Co-op Co-op colleagues intranet Devon County Council Inside Devon intranet Nielsen Norman Group yearly intranet design report 10 best intranets of 2020 NNg article 1.4 Reading and resources Design, strategy and research books Content design, Sarah RichardsContent Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson and Melissa RachDon’t Make Me Think, Revisited, Steve KrugJust Enough Research, Erika HallReadability Guidelines Handbook, Sarah Richards and Lizzie BruceThe Ethical Design Handbook, Trine Falbe, Martin Michael Frederiksen, Kim AndersenTop Tasks, Gerry McGovernWhy you need a content team, and how to build one, Rachel McConnellWriting is designing, Michael J. Metts and Andy Welfe Content design articles by Lizzie Bruce Content workflow essentials: timing, skill-sets and collaborationDesigning with content: how using content patterns can helpMigrating content: strategies for successThe content designer role: a definition and ideal way of workingWhy do you need a content designer?17 tips to get content people in the room, for non-content people Content guidelines Guardian and Observer style guideGOV.UK A to Z style guideGOV.UK design systemReadability Guidelines wikiSocial model of disability, on Scope website Specifically on intranets Intranet Diary blog, from Luke OathamIntranet blog posts, by Sharon O’DeaIntranet Design Annual: 2021, from Nielsen Norman Group10 Best Intranets of 2021: What makes them great, from Nielsen Norman GroupIntranet Now conference website, from Lisa Riemers and WedgeEssential Intranets, a book by James Robertson13 Intranet Best Practices, from Colibo Code GovIntranet WordPress theme Luke Oatham’s ‘govintranet-free’ GitHub repository (Agento Digital supported clients have access to a premium version.) GDS design system UK Government Digital Service design system Chapter 2. Communications None Chapter 3. Design 3.2 Putting it into practice user-centred language and principles, W3.org website 3.3 Definitions of user-centred design Interaction Design Foundation User Centered Design, Interaction Design Foundation website United States government User-centered design basics, Usability.gov website World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative UCD in a sentence, W3C website Chapter 4. Users 4.1 Types of users, their contexts and environments Your users Venn diagram 4.4 Problems give you user needs Journey mapping External guidance from a user behaviour consultancy: Journey mapping 101, Nielsen Norman Group. Chapter 5. Information flow 5.3 Updating your database Adding categories External guidance: case study, Gerry McGovern’s crowdsourced classification for Covid-19 World Health Organisation content 5.4 Universal intranet topics Topic tags Govintranet demo site Chapter 6. What’s live? 6.2 Audit for user needs External guidance: Lizzie Bruce GatherContent article on migration success strategiesExternal guidance: Lizzie Bruce Medium article in praise of the content audit Chapter 7. Scheduling 7.3 Pair-writing with stakeholders External guidance: Content Design London Readability Guidelines wiki 7.5 Logistics Training External guidance: GDS free online content design training course Chapter 8. Creating content 8.2 Images External guidance: Luke Oatham’s tips on creating your own intranet stock photo library 8.4 Content patterns External guidance: Lizzie Bruce GatherContent article on content patterns 8.5 Writing task and guide content Tasks External reference: view various examples of tasks on the Govintranet demo site. Visit demo.govintra.net, go to How do I?, then choose any of the tags, for example “travel”. Guides External reference: access various examples of guides on the Govintranet demo site. Visit demo.govintra.net and enter the word “guide” into the site search box. 8.7 User test the content External guidance: Erika Hall Just Enough Research Chapter 9. What’s missing? 9.1 News and directory External guidance: GovIntranet gets a people profile and staff directory, Intranet Diary 9.6 Online learning External guidance: online learning from edX.orgExternal guidance: online learning from coursera.orgExternal guidance: online learning from FutureLearn Chapter 10. Navigation 10.1 Example navigation User testing External guidance: Treejack tool on Optimal Workshop website Chapter 11. Launch None Chapter 12. After live 12.4 Content calendar Populate the calendar External guidance: GatherContent editorial calendar templateExternal guidance: GatherContent content calendar About the book “This will become the go-to resource for intranet projects” — Robert Mills Create content that makes it faster for people to find what they need on the intranet than from a colleague. Learn user-centred design as you progress through this practical, stage by stage guide. Generally, people want information about a specific thing, fast, when they visit an intranet. They need it in as little time as possible, so they can get to a meeting, or enjoy their lunch break. This book outlines processes that put into practice these 3 essential principles for user-centred intranet content: 1. Content reflects a staff need for it.2. Information is easy to find.3. Style, tone and language is optimised for users with little time to read and absorb content. Lizzie Bruce pours her experience of designing intranet content around staff needs for UK government into 100 pages of advice and techniques for creating usable, readable content. Includes: list of universal intranet tasksglossary of user-centred design termsproject “shopping list”timeline plannertips for stakeholder buy-inlinks to case studies and blogs Every organisation planning an intranet redesign needs this book. Find out more and buy book
‘Task-based intranet content’ book: now published My practical, step by step guide to user-centred intranets is now published. It’s the only book out there on creating task-based intranet content, and is written by a DCMS award-winning intranet content lead and GovIntranet content creator. “Really good stuff from someone who knows her intranets.” – Tom Loosemore, digital transformation consultant at Public Digital, ex-GDS, ex-BBC. “This will become the go-to resource for intranet projects” – Robert Mills, independent content and communications consultant. Buy the book You can buy my book in print or as an eBook. The print version has additional shipping costs. Buy in print from Blurb, £15 + shipping Buy Apple eBook, £14.99 Buy Kobo eBook, £15 About the book “Create content that makes it faster for people to find what they need on the intranet than from a colleague. Learn user-centred design as you progress through this practical, stage by stage guide. Generally, people want information about a specific thing, fast, when they visit an intranet. They need it in as little time as possible, so they can get to a meeting, or enjoy their lunch break. This book outlines processes that put into practice these 3 essential principles for user-centred intranet content: 1. Content reflects a staff need for it.2. Information is easy to find.3. Style, tone and language is optimised for users with little time to read and absorb content. Lizzie Bruce pours her experience of designing intranet content around staff needs for UK government into 100 pages of advice and techniques for creating usable, readable content. Includes: list of universal intranet tasks glossary of user-centred design terms project “shopping list” timeline planner tips for stakeholder buy-in links to case studies and blogs Every organisation planning an intranet redesign needs this book.” About the author Lizzie Bruce is a content strategist and user-centred design training creator. Firmly committed to user-centred, accessible and inclusive design, since 2003 she’s applied her skills in multiple sectors: public to property, legal to leisure, art to eco, finance to fashion. Clients have included UK central and local government, RNIB, Great Western Railway, John Lewis and University of Cambridge. Lizzie led Content Design London’s award-winning Readability Guidelines project, writing the guidelines, wiki and handbook content, and is a regular contributor to content publications. She’s spoken on content at conferences and meet-ups in Brighton, Budapest, Canberra, London, Melbourne, Sydney and Tokyo. Thank you Thanks very much for your interest in this book, and thank you in advance for buying it if you do. It’s for anyone involved in an intranet redesign project, particularly those new to user-centred design practices, but should also be useful to people who haven’t previously worked on a task-based intranet. Thanks again for everyone’s encouragement during my writing of this new book. It’s dedicated to all the user-centred design advocates, content strategists and clear language experts whose work in the field have paved its way. Further reference links External further references are marked in the second edition of the print book (amber cover) with a square bullet. Direct links are listed on this website: access list of further reference links. Where to buy You can buy in print or as an eBook: Buy in print from Blurb, £15 + shipping Buy Apple eBook, £14.99 Buy Kobo eBook, £15 I may create an audio version or put the book up on more platforms, and will update here if that happens. It won’t coming out on Amazon, due ethical concerns about their working practices.
Early access to ‘User-centred design for intranets’ webbook by Ko-fi.com donation We’ve opened early access to ‘User-centred design for intranets: a practical guide for task-based content’ as a Pressbooks webbook. You can get the all-chapter access passcode by making a ko-fi.com donation of £6, the price of a London coffee and croissant. This is to make the book content and advice available as soon as possible for whoever needs and wants it quickly. Scroll to find out how. Ebook and print formats to follow soon The eBook and print on demand formats will follow later in the year. We are still collecting feedback from selected early readers, so the content may change slightly in the final print set, published version. How to get early access Include your Twitter handle on your Ko-fi donation message, or after your donation send us a direct message on Twitter @cakecontent, as we’ll need to send you the webbook all-chapter access passcode privately. We aim to do this within 24 hours of your donation, and will check for new orders at around 6pm each day. We’ll try to make it possible for everyone who donates on Ko-fi.com for the webbook preview to get a discount code for the eBook but can’t guarantee that will happen. So, if you don’t need it straightaway and want to hang on for the eBook please do, it should be out by the end of November. View the chapter outline on the Pressbooks website. Micro-reviews welcomed! Feel free to tweet your reactions about our intranet content book if you take up the early access webbook offer. Please tag us, we’re @cakecontent. Or if you fancy writing a longer review on your blog or Medium we would of course be very grateful, they will help spread word of this user-centred design intranet content resource more widely.
‘User-centred design for intranets’: an update on Lizzie’s new book First, thank you so much for your interest. The new intranet content design book by Lizzie Bruce is called ‘User-centred design for intranets: a practical guide for task-based content’. The book content is finished, and is with a couple of early readers at the moment. An exciting time. We plan to first release it as a Pressbooks webbook. Access to webbook chapter content will initially be available through a Ko-fi.com donation. For an idea of what to expect, please preview the book content structure at: intranetcontent.pressbooks.com It will take a little longer to set up the other formats. Here are some more details. E-book, print The book content should in future be available as an ebook on Apple, Kobo and Kindle. The print version will be print-on-demand, from Blurb or IngramSpark. PDF We had minimal interest in a PDF version, and will be offering the webbook or ebook format instead. Audiobook We’d also like to make the content available as an audiobook, ideally narrated by the author. Thanks for your patience: this is the first time we’ve managed the publishing of a book. Until the next update.
The content designer role: a definition and ideal way of working Conversations last week led me to share the basic fundamentals of the content design role, as intended when it was created in 2012: a content designer is a designer on a multi-disciplinary team.Worth noting which words the organisation who created the discipline included, and excluded, from the role name:1. They included the word ‘designer‘, to highlight that the role involved design skill and is a design role.2. They excluded ‘user experience‘, as one of their organisational mantras was that user experience is everyone on the team’s responsibility. An extended definition This intends to offer flexibility, while also providing a baseline of the fundamentals needed for a content designer to work effectively. ”A content designer is a designer who is part of a user-centred, multi-disciplinary team on a project, product, service or programme.They are responsible for conveying information to users.Their focus is presenting information that users need clearly, inclusively and accessibly for all, so that it can be absorbed and understood quickly, and thoroughly. To do this they research user needs and language, then use, adapt, and design with: wordsformatlayoutstructuregovernancestrategy They test their designs, and iterate them based on analysis of user research insights.They are an integral part of the design and development team attached to a product or service, from the beginning, ideally from the very beginning, to the end, and need to be involved in all product-relevant discussions and meetings. They should be able to continue iterating content elements, based on user feedback, after the product or service is live.”– Lizzie Bruce, 2020This is a baseline description, and the role flexes. My content design background I feel in a position to put forward a full definition of the content designer role as I:• worked in content at the original organisation before and after content design was introduced• took one of the first ever courses in it• worked in, introduced and promoted it in 9 other external, cross-sector organisations, including: law, retail, transport, education and charity • am a consultant for Content Design London, founded by the person who was head of content at the originating organisation when the term was created• have trained and mentored content designers• co-researched a paper on the value of content design to business• keep up to date with peer discussion of content design and role of content designer across industry Non-ideal and ideal ways for a content designer to work The skills of a content designer are not always understood by the organisation that employs them. It’s best for a content designer to be embedded on a project from very early on. I’ve written about the benefits and insights gained from involving a content designer from the discovery phase. The one and only Sometimes a content designer will work unsupported by a multi-disciplinary team, for example in an organisation new to user-centred design. That means they take on all the responsibilities of all the roles in an ideal multi-disciplinary service or product team: carrying out the user research and service design by themself, as well as the interaction design and web page development, or they may work with an external development company, who, though then working on the same product could not be said to be on the same team.They may even be the product owner and delivery manager, too, as well as having to translate technical language into plain English and create visual design elements. This is not the ideal way for a content designer to work. No ”i“ in team Sometimes a content designer will work as part of a core product or service design team, which will also have a dedicated user researcher, product owner and delivery manager, and may have various of the following: service or product designer, interaction designer, technical writer, graphic designer, accessibility assessor. All roles in a multi-disciplinary team enrich the product or service’s design and development with their unique expertise. They find out what is right for the user, based on usability evidence (rather than who is right, based on hierarchy or voice volume). This is the ideal way for a content designer to work. Pulled in too many directions Sometimes a content designer will work in more than one multi-disciplinary team on more that one product or service at a time. The higher the number of different, disparate projects a content designer is working on, the less they will be able to delve deeply into any one product or service’s complexities and user needs, and the greater the amount of context switch they will be subjected to which can carry a high cognitive load and reduce effectiveness and efficiency. Working on more than a couple of or a very few products at the same time is not an ideal way for a content designer to work. The only exception is where the products are directly co-related and knowledge of one brings greater context to another. Further reading Why editors need to design, Content Design LondonWhat we mean when we talk about content design, GOV.UKContent designer, GOV.UKContent design, GOV.UKWhat is content design? GOV.UKWhy multidisciplinary teams are good, Medium“Why do you need a content designer? The words just appear, right?”, Digital DrumGet a head start on digital projects include content from the discovery phase, GatherContent
Free content tools and resources, curated by Cake Here at Cake Content Consultancy we use and recommend these free online tools and resources for producing web and social content. More
