As content designers we’re always trying to meet our users’ needs in the best and clearest way possible. That’s the very essence of our job. So what do we do if someone comes to our content with a need we just can’t meet?
We’ve faced this problem working with a few clients lately, especially in government where law and regulations come into play.
The TLDR version: be upfront.
In 2019, Scott Kubie told us that Content Strategy Is Boring (and That's OK).
I reckon he was right in every way except one. He said: ‘leave the creativity for your content’. Nup. That’s where I disagree.
Lots of content is boring. And that’s OK too. Delight isn’t always right.
When coronavirus impacts your users and customers, you need to produce content in a hurry, so you can keep everyone informed about changes that are happening daily, if not hourly.
When we try to get content out quickly, it’s tempting to cut corners, especially if we’re feeling as stressed as our users. But it’s more important than ever to follow content design best practices. Why? Because in times of stress, everyone’s cognitive capacity drops. People don’t have the time or mental resources to wade through irrelevant, unclear or badly organised content to get to what they need.
And the Goddess Sarah sent her Weave angels – Susan, Angus and Lorien – down to Sydney and they appeared before the Content Design Virgin Cat and said: ‘you shall bear and give birth to a radical idea: that less is more. Omit those needless words. Forget those FAQs. And focus on the user. You are the bringer of content clarity. Go out into the world and spread the news that good Content Design is here to serve the needs of the user'. And thus spake the Weavers unto Cat and in so doing unleashed a mighty force upon the world of cognitive overload and rambling wordage.
For us content people, one of the most useful (and discipline-defining) books of the last few years has been Content Design by Sarah Richards. Until late 2019, though, any Australian wanting Content Design London training would have to fly to the UK (as I did). But no more! Sarah has asked Weave to deliver her content design course in Australia.
We’re thrilled that Content Design London has chosen Weave to deliver content design workshops in Australia. We’ve been applying a strategic approach to content for over a decade and when we read Sarah Richards’ book ‘Content Design’, we realised we’d found a missing piece of the great content puzzle.
Content design has changed Weave’s thinking and our process for creating content. It's given us tools to achieve things we've struggled with over the years. It's made us think differently about problem-solving. And it's made us more courageous in our advice.
So why content design?
Let’s go back to the beginning. It’s a story that starts as long ago as 1999. I headed into the web space with a new copy of ‘Information Architecture for the WWW’ under my arm, and started work on some IA projects with a bit of lean user research added. Over the next few years I came to realise that, without content, IA was simply empty boxes and arrows (a favourite IA website at the time). In an attempt to redress this I found myself writing a lot of different types of content but always in a rushed and ad hoc way.