How design and content can — and should — share a seat at the table
If you think your content or navigation strategy is more important than your user interface designer or back-end developer, you’ll want to stop reading.
If you think your design is more important than the words and experience on the page, you should probably stop reading, too.
Content and design share a seat in creating the digital products that they help craft and launch so lovingly. While one step may come before the others in some cases, both impact the user experience in the final product.
From silo to swarm
In our agency’s office, we sit on siloed teams — content with content, design with design, search experts with search experts. But when it’s time to swarm on a new project, we work as one team. We share a project board. We attend calls as a team. We back each other up when we have to defend our approach.
Be in each other’s face and business — all the time.
And this is a good thing! Every element I brainstorm for a site architecture or content recommendations is shared with my designer before the client, and vice versa. Rather than feeling bombarded on a client call by a surprise design feature, microcopy, call-to-action, or navigation change, we make decisions as a collaborative team and have full knowledge of the reasons for the content and design direction we’re heading.
I can’t count how many times we’ve referenced each other in our calls. “As Amanda mentioned before…” or “As Erin talked about last week in her content recommendations…” We’re not afraid to stand up for each other and back each other up when the situation requires.
Here are some tips for working collaboratively — from my personal experience — to deliver great products.
Stay obsessively in touch with each other
Got a question to your designer? Send an e-mail or a Slack message before you forget it. Or, if you work in the building, stop by and check in with them.
Throughout your project, don’t shy from asking to pull up a chair to your designer — or asking them to stop by your desk — so you can collaborate on your strategy. Better yet, schedule some time where you can both be totally focused. But the point is, be obsessively in touch with each other outside of project calls or group meetings.
Use meeting time wisely
When you’re together, use that time wisely. Post-it notes, screen sharing, or whatever collaboration tools make your life easier are a helpful way to keep one another on track and focused on the topic you’re trying to resolve. Meaningful conversation is key.
“Collaboration methods and exercises are as vast and diverse as user research. Deciding what approach to use can be guided by answering two questions:
1. What is the problem or challenge that needs to be solved?
2. What results does the meeting need to produce?” — Jennifer Leigh Brown, UX Booth
Make collaborative conversations a part of your day, from the elevator to the break room.
It’s never good to rely on someone else to do a job you can do just as well (or better), so don’t rely on team meetings or project management discussions to be the only place where you communicate with your creative partners. You should make these conversations a part of your day, from the elevator to the break room.
Welcome questions, approaches, and yes, criticism
I can’t stress this enough. You may think your landing page copy deserves a Pulitzer. Or, maybe you think your design will win every Addy award category next year.
That’s great and good for building ego strength, but it’s likely not reality.
More so, if you’re trying to deliver the best user experience possible but your designer or content expert has a few things out of line with the project goals, expectations, or best usability, you need to speak up. And as the recipient of that feedback, temper your irritation and be open to what he or she has to say.
The great thing about this strong partnership is the ability to question each other’s motives and thought process, ensuring you’re considering all the angles in which a user might engage with the end product.
Remember, you’re both playing for the same team. If you work primarily with words, design may not be your strong suit and vice versa. You have to build trust with one another. As a creative-minded person (writer or designer), you should know this anyway. But you’d be surprised how many writers I know with thin skin, even after years in a professional writing field.
At the end of the day, it’s important to keep client needs, user goals, and the delivered experience in mind before you marry yourself to clever navigation or design that doesn’t fit.
Ask a lot of questions along the way
Your designer or content strategist is an expert at what they do — and many times, the UX risks they want to take are in their head before they’re on a page or wireframe.
As they’re presenting ideas, or talking out solutions, ask questions along the way. We’ve all heard the phrase “There’s no such thing as a stupid question,” and it’s completely true. It’s especially valuable to ask questions if you’re thinking from a user’s perspective.
As web experts, we all have ideas that may not quite work with the intended goal of the end-experience, so it’s OK to bring this up, question it from all angles, and solve it another way if necessary.
Likewise, if you’re just curious about how your partner-in-crime thinks or does what he or she does, ask them! They’ll be happy to share knowledge with you so you can deepen your trust and understanding of their recommendations in the future.
“Teams that fail, fail to listen to each other.” — Brent Summers, Inside Design
In the end, you work as a team
There’s a reason “there’s no ‘I’ in team” was repeated throughout your younger, more formidable years, from P.E. class to college. Because as adults, whether working remote or in an office — from banking to roofing to auto repair to design agencies — you're all part of a team.
And it’s important to recognize what certain team members and specialties can bring to the end result, and step back when you’re not the person for the job.
“The UX writer can understand the whole design and provide language that is based on the context, problem and user. They are able to refine and craft words in ways that a designer might not be able to which makes them really valuable to a product team. They are the stewards/stewardess of how the content sounds to create a unified voice in your product.” — Tiffany Eaton, Google
How to collaborate effectively
Approaching projects from a team mentality rather than from superiority or a “single hero” standpoint is essential. It doesn’t only reflect in the quality of the work you deliver, and the way your client views your company, but reflects in your job satisfaction, too. There’s something really great about having a stellar unveiling of a quality deliverable that you created together.
As you work on your next project, consider asking yourself:
- What would (insert teammate here) question about this decision?
- Did I account for (content, design, SEO) with this recommendation? I should check with him/her/them.
- How should we tackle this problem from every angle (of the team)?
- I heard (feedback) from the client, but I wonder if (teammate) heard it the same way?
If you spend 40 hours a week combating people who are on your side, it’ll feel a lot longer. Life is short — compromise and collaborate.
Tara Malone, author for Inside Design at Invision, notes that coming up with “shared principles” in working collaboratively can help lay vital foundations for how the team communicates.
“An important component of an effective strategy is having shared principles, or a common understanding about how the team works. These principles can vary widely depending on the team, but at least some of them should be aimed towards helping team members feel secure and included. “”— Tara Malone, Inside Design
Developing shared principles as a team is not only a valuable teamwork exercise but a great way to lay important principals down in stone for future collaborations.
This level of team communication can improve efficiency, reveal diverse perspectives and approaches, and create better outcomes.
But all in all, remember to be kind. Don’t take things too personally. Be honest with yourself and each other. High-five your teammates when things go well, and speak up when they don’t. All of these things deepen the relationship you have on cross-collaborative teams and makes for a better product and better satisfaction with life.
