Blog posts, articles, news 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 13, 2026March 13, 2026 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 13, 2026March 13, 2026 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… by Lizzie Bruce August 22, 2025August 22, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce July 4, 2025July 21, 2025 AI content quality control and review checklist, first version AI quality control and review checklist from Lizzie Bruce, Cake Design Studio. by Lizzie Bruce May 21, 2025May 21, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce February 1, 2025May 15, 2025 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?… by Lizzie Bruce January 30, 2025March 2, 2025 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,… by Lizzie Bruce January 25, 2025March 2, 2025 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.… by Lizzie Bruce November 8, 2024March 2, 2025 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.… by Lizzie Bruce September 8, 2024March 2, 2025 Weeknotes: 29 August 2024 Quite a momentous week! A logo snazz-up, and much more. by Lizzie Bruce September 2, 2024September 2, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce June 7, 2024June 7, 2024 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’,… by Lizzie Bruce April 19, 2024April 19, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce April 12, 2024April 19, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce April 12, 2024April 24, 2024 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 http://www.readabilityguidelines.co.uk, associated book, and reprinted book.” – Elizabeth Bruce (known as Lizzie Bruce) More detail may follow. by Lizzie Bruce April 12, 2024April 12, 2024 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. Happy Easter, chicks! 🐥Lizzie, Lead consultant, Cake Content Consultancy by Lizzie Bruce March 28, 2024April 19, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 22, 2024March 27, 2024 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. by Lizzie Bruce March 22, 2024April 19, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 12, 2024March 12, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 8, 2024January 5, 2026 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… by Lizzie Bruce January 24, 2024August 22, 2025 6 essential things for businesses to know about content design Businesses run on content. Here are 6 things content designers would love stakeholders to understand, available free on SlideShare. Please share wherever it’s useful. by Lizzie Bruce December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 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… by Lizzie Bruce November 11, 2022April 25, 2025 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 2, 2022September 30, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce October 7, 2021March 29, 2022 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… by Lizzie Bruce August 5, 2021July 28, 2022 Cake Bitesize lessons: curated building blocks in user-centred design 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… by Lizzie Bruce July 30, 2021January 14, 2022 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… by Lizzie Bruce March 8, 2021July 26, 2022 ‘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… by Lizzie Bruce January 25, 2021December 23, 2024 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… by Lizzie Bruce October 6, 2020May 17, 2021 ‘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… by Lizzie Bruce September 29, 2020May 17, 2021 The content designer role: a definition and ideal way of working “A content designer is a designer in a user-centred, multi-disciplinary team on a project, product, service or programme.” by Lizzie Bruce July 20, 2020May 17, 2021 Free content tools and resources, curated by Cake We recommend these free online tools and resources if you’re producing web and social content. by Lizzie Bruce May 1, 2018February 27, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 13, 2026March 13, 2026
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 13, 2026March 13, 2026
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… by Lizzie Bruce August 22, 2025August 22, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce July 4, 2025July 21, 2025
AI content quality control and review checklist, first version AI quality control and review checklist from Lizzie Bruce, Cake Design Studio. by Lizzie Bruce May 21, 2025May 21, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce February 5, 2025March 2, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce February 1, 2025May 15, 2025
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?… by Lizzie Bruce January 30, 2025March 2, 2025
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,… by Lizzie Bruce January 25, 2025March 2, 2025
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.… by Lizzie Bruce November 8, 2024March 2, 2025
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.… by Lizzie Bruce September 8, 2024March 2, 2025
Weeknotes: 29 August 2024 Quite a momentous week! A logo snazz-up, and much more. by Lizzie Bruce September 2, 2024September 2, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce June 7, 2024June 7, 2024
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’,… by Lizzie Bruce April 19, 2024April 19, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce April 12, 2024April 19, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce April 12, 2024April 24, 2024
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 http://www.readabilityguidelines.co.uk, associated book, and reprinted book.” – Elizabeth Bruce (known as Lizzie Bruce) More detail may follow. by Lizzie Bruce April 12, 2024April 12, 2024
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. Happy Easter, chicks! 🐥Lizzie, Lead consultant, Cake Content Consultancy by Lizzie Bruce March 28, 2024April 19, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 22, 2024March 27, 2024
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. by Lizzie Bruce March 22, 2024April 19, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 12, 2024March 12, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 8, 2024January 5, 2026
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… by Lizzie Bruce January 24, 2024August 22, 2025
6 essential things for businesses to know about content design Businesses run on content. Here are 6 things content designers would love stakeholders to understand, available free on SlideShare. Please share wherever it’s useful. by Lizzie Bruce December 14, 2023December 14, 2023
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… by Lizzie Bruce November 11, 2022April 25, 2025
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 2, 2022September 30, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce October 7, 2021March 29, 2022
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… by Lizzie Bruce August 5, 2021July 28, 2022
Cake Bitesize lessons: curated building blocks in user-centred design 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… by Lizzie Bruce July 30, 2021January 14, 2022
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… by Lizzie Bruce March 8, 2021July 26, 2022
‘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… by Lizzie Bruce January 25, 2021December 23, 2024
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… by Lizzie Bruce October 6, 2020May 17, 2021
‘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… by Lizzie Bruce September 29, 2020May 17, 2021
The content designer role: a definition and ideal way of working “A content designer is a designer in a user-centred, multi-disciplinary team on a project, product, service or programme.” by Lizzie Bruce July 20, 2020May 17, 2021
Free content tools and resources, curated by Cake We recommend these free online tools and resources if you’re producing web and social content. by Lizzie Bruce May 1, 2018February 27, 2025
