Content Design by Sarah Richards is a good introduction to Content Design that goes through the process of a project, providing a great overview of the important tools that Sarah has used throughout her career. Here are my notes:

Introduction

  • The ‘write, SEO, sub, publish’ type of publishing doesn’t necessarily take into account what users actually need. Sometimes, users don’t need to read anything. What a user wants and what they need might be two different things.
  • A content designer will think about the best possible way to deliver information to the indebted person. Perhaps that might mean using video, or an online debt repayments calculator. Those are pieces of content that might meet the need, but in many organisations, creating them will be the responsibility of a completely different team.
  • Sometimes what a user wants gets forgotten in a lot of pages saying what the business or organisation wants to say.
  • Good content designers:
    • should be humble; they serve the audience
    • are totally focused on user-centred content
    • appreciate that no one can know everything
    • are open to learning
    • aren’t wedded to grammar rules they were taught in primary school. Language moves on and a good content designer moves on with it

Content discovery and research

  • The point of discovery is that it’s a chance for everyone  to share what they know with everyone else. All the  participants end up with the same understanding of the  problem. Everyone can see the same data. You know when your discovery is over when everyone  who needs to agrees on what the next steps should be. 
  • The thing with prior knowledge is that it colours your judgement. 
  • Who are you talking to? Who do you really want to come to your site? How well do you really know them? For some people you’ll know this. For others, you’ll think you know this. If you’ve worked in your organisation for a while, you’ll have a good measure of who those humans are. But  don’t forget that people change their habits along  with the technology they use. Do you really know your audience as of right now – or as of a few years ago?

User stories

  • A user story is a  way of pinning down what the team needs to do without telling them how to do it.
  • A user story looks like this: As a [person in a  particular role]  I want to [perform  an action or find  something out]  So that [I can achieve  my goal of…] 
  • User stories are great if you have a number of different audiences who might all want  to consume your content. But there’s an  alternative to user stories that might be  better if you only have one audience, and that’s job stories. 

Job stories

  • Job stories are for  specific tasks and  usually when you  have one audience.  They are good for  targeted actions. 
  • Job stories always start with: When [there’s a particular situation] I want to [perform an action or find something out] So I can [achieve my goal of…]
  • For example: When I am concerned about the effect fracking will have on the planet I want to find out who is responsible So I can contact the right organisation
  • Meeting acceptance criteria gives your team a chance to tick things off the to-do list.
    • For: When I find out fracking might happen near me I want to find out exactly where So I can decide what I am going to do your acceptance criterion might be: This story is done when I can find where the nearest fracking site is to the location I am interested in. Note that the criterion isn’t: This story is done when I can put in my postcode and see the nearest fracking site.

Bringing your organisation with you

  • The best way to get the rest of an organisation to agree with my work and approach is to run a workshop where all the right people are together. Make it sound important – Don’t call it a meeting. Sometimes, a word like ‘workshop’ does the job, but it is overused and can mean different things to different people. ‘Decision-making session’ can work well.
  • Videos of user research are particularly powerful if you have them. Nothing gets to the heart of the problem faster than a real user saying what they really think while trying to use a website.

Designing content

  • With your user stories and job stories backing you up, you’re now in a position to start proposing solutions. You can say, ‘No one will read a list of 3,000 addresses, so let’s build a postcode look-up tool.’ That’s content design, right there. You are designing the content for your audience.
  • Formats are different ways of presenting information on a page. Text is one format. A postcode look-up tool is another format. Other formats include calculators, or calendars, or maps, and so on. Anything that presents information in some way.
  • When you are looking at what content to produce first, prioritise these  things, in this order:
    • 1. anything your research shows users want from you
    • 2. information that limits reputational damage to your organisation
    • 3. things that will need more  developer time to build 

Writing content

  • Front-loading means putting the most important word(s) of the sentence at the beginning. If you frontload your headings, you make it easier and quicker for readers to understand the content.
  • You probably have 3 seconds to get my attention, and 5 to keep it. So the first paragraph on a page is very, very important. Make those 3 seconds count.
  • Put the information that 80% of your audience is looking for first. The information the other 20% of your audience is looking for should be there–and findable from a search engine–but not front and centre.
  • If you have a task-based information page–say, to apply for something–making sure your audience is eligible to make the application is probably the most important thing. No one wants to waste time on something they definitely can’t get.
  • Punctuation at the end of a sentence is entirely optional. Screen readers (software products designed to help people with visual impairments read digital content) will pause longer if there is a comma at the end of each point. That’s about it, though.
  • Often, especially for task-based pages, the shorter the content, the better.
  • Keep sentences short
  • ‘Based on several studies, press associations in the USA have laid down a readability table. Their survey shows readers find sentences of 8 words or less very easy to read; 11 words, easy; 14 words fairly easy; 17 words standard; 21 words fairly difficult; 25 words difficult and 29 words or more, very difficult.’
  • People who are well read (aka not dumb) read a lot. They don’t have time to wade through jargon. They want the information quickly and easily–just like everyone else. Wanting to understand quickly has little to do with intelligence. It has a lot to do with time and respect.
  • The average reading age in the UK is about 9 years.
  • Writing for an age range isn’t the same as writing to that age. Most 9-year-olds will not be interested in insurance. But someone who is 49 with little time, or dyslexia, or a small phone screen, or a life to live, will benefit from you getting to the point quickly and with little jargon. As I said before: it’s not dumbing down, it’s opening up.
  • Stick to using familiar punctuation like commas and full stops.
  • But when working on some websites, I know my audience want short sentences they can understand quickly; they don’t want to marvel at how well I can wrangle the English language. Remember, this is not about perceived intelligence–it’s about speed of reading and comprehension. Nothing else.
  • As content designers, we know that sometimes a  graphic or icon is a good idea. You are not treading on a designer’s toes here (although they may feel that way). This is where you are a content designer and not a  writer. If your audience will better understand what you  are trying to say with a picture, use one. 

Pair writing

  • Writing content  alongside someone  else (both of you,  at the same time,  in front of the same  computer or piece  of paper) is called  pair writing.
  • It’s hard for one person to write content that’s both accurate and easy  to read. That’s one reason why pair writing is such a good idea. There are always experts in every organisation who know every  single detail about how each particular thing works. They can write accurately. But they’re not always good at explaining it clearly—precisely because they know too much about it. Their minds are too focused on the detail.
  • Successful pair writing depends on your relationship  with your partner and their willingness to do things in a  user-centred way. Sometimes, it can take time (perhaps  several actual pair-writing sessions) for the 2 of you to  build that relationship. 
  • Top tips for pair writing
    • find a quiet space for the 2 of you to work together
    • write the user story out on paper, and keep it close by so that it’s uppermost in your minds throughout
    • get a big monitor and bump up the text size, so you can both clearly read every word
    • constant experimentation is OK; type something, and ask ‘Does this work?’
    • try not to work together for more than 2 hours at a time (more than that, and both brains start to lose focus) 

Final bits

  • Content design isn’t just a technique, it’s a way of thinking.
  • You’ll question everything, gather data and make informed decisions. You’ll put your audience first.
  • If after performing the techniques in the book, if your content isn’t perfect because you had to compromise with a stakeholder, you are still further ahead than you were. One step at a time. Because of you, the internet is getting better.
  • Content design will help you achieve the most important goal: putting users first.