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Content Design is about more than content
Content designers should focus on more than words.
As a content designer, I need to understand the content, language, and style guides. I need to understand user journeys and focus on users first before I start thinking about what words to use. Most content designers know this. There are plenty of articles about what content design is, and what content designers bring to the table. A quick Google search will lead you there.
However, there are other significant elements to being a good content designer in any organisation. Especially a large organisation with an intricate set up like the central government.
While working on a large, urgent, and a rather significant project called the EU Exit, I’ve learned these lessons which are also relevant to other complex organisations:
Uncertainty
We are a nation living in uncertain times. There are ongoing political developments which may or may not impact policies across the country. When you are preparing content in such a climate, the normal stability of “know your users”, “know your data”, “trust the evidence” is difficult to achieve.
Yes, you do need to know your users and what they need, but your user needs might change, depending on things beyond your control.
There is not a lot of data or evidence when the final decisions are not yet made, so you’ve to work with what you have.
So the best thing is to embrace uncertainty.
Your content may have to be reactive to a certain extent, but you can still proactively prepare for it.
Flexibility
Civil service of any country is generally not known for their flexibility. But when you are working on a project where the outcome may impact a large number of people, while deadlines and information keep changing, flexibility is paramount.
Our content team has dealt with this well. We do the standard things that you would expect of a content team: We use a daily stand-up call to deal with issues and blockers. We use Slack for consistent communication. We share drafts in Google docs to collaborate. We use Trello to keep track of the workflow. We peer…
