Content Design, Second Edition: Research, plan and deliver the content your audience wants and needs

By Sarah Winters and Rachel Edwards

Sarah Winters (internationally renowned leader and founder of Content Design London) and content designer Rachel Edwards explain how to use content design techniques to make your content better for your users, and your organisation.

They explain:

• what content design is,
• why content design is different from other types of writing,
• how to use data and evidence to create good content,
• who to involve in content creation.

Using real-world and imagined examples, this practical guide supports you through the content design process one step at a time. This second edition includes updated case studies and a new chapter on journey mapping.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781304640376

Book preview

ISBN print: 978-1-304-64039-0; ebook: 978-1-304-64037-6

Published in the United Kingdom by

Content Design London

Kemp House, 152 City Road,

London EC1V 2NX

Copyright © Content Design London

First edition published July 2017

Second edition published March 2024

Edited by Giles Turnbull

Original design Mark Hurrell, revised design by Catherine Lutman

Sarah Winters has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers

Content Design London does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This book is typeset using GT America

Printed by Lulu.com

[e-mail]

www.contentdesign.london

For Dad.

I’m carrying my grief with more grace

but the load doesn’t seem any lighter.

— Sarah

For Leo and Rosa, whom everything is for,

and Chris, who first told me to be a content designer.

— Rachel

Contents

Introduction

Preparation

Chapter 1 Why content design matters

Chapter 2 The science of reading

Chapter 3 Content discovery and research

Chapter 4 User stories and job stories

Chapter 5 Journey mapping

Chapter 6 Bringing your organisation with you

Design

Chapter 7 Designing content

Chapter 8 Writing content

Chapter 9 Pair writing

Chapter 10 Crits

Chapter 11 Finished pages

Further reading, references, and attributions

Foreword

No one person invented content design. It came about through the efforts of myriad people and processes over time. But Sarah Winters is the one who gave it a name, codified a method and made it the profession it is today - and I was there to witness it happen.

You could tell straight away Sarah was on to something from the outrage she caused in Whitehall and the media.

Who was this upstart telling half-a-million public servants to stop writing ‘deliver’ unless they meant pizza, or ‘drive’ unless they meant cattle? How dare she bar ministers and policy officials from preemptively answering questions they might frequently be asked? Wasn’t stripping out specialist and legal language ‘dumbing down’? Wasn’t it dangerous?

This was 2011, and frankly, it was high time to get a little dangerous.

Users had been struggling for years with the UK’s digital public services – mostly paper-based processes replicated online, buried in a confusing sprawl of websites designed to promote departments’ work rather than to make services easy to use. We all agreed content was crucial, but policy teams and subject experts held the power, while digital teams - laden with user insights and desperate to act on them - were largely seen as publishers at the end of the process.

Martha Lane-Fox advocated for a revolution, and a bunch of new hires and existing civil servants (Sarah and me among them) assembled to make it happen. You likely know the rest of this story already – and have experienced GOV.UK’s resulting simplicity and clarity.

Like all the best ideas, when Sarah first introduced her concept of content design to me, it felt both radically different from everything before – and immediately, obviously right.

It felt radical because it flipped the focus of content creation from what organisations sought to say or sell, to what users needed to know and do. From following a house style and glossary of jargon terms to being readily understood by as many people as possible. From writing words on a page to empathising holistically with the users’ whole context and journey. From a job anyone can do (of course all office workers can write) to a recognised discipline and community of practice, with quality standards and continuous professional development.

It felt right because it nailed what web editors, e-comms managers and people with similar noughties job titles (my own included) had wanted to do for years but struggled to articulate or get buy-in for. Better still, it was rooted in years of collective experience and research into language, how people read, and how search engines work. There was a depth and substance to Sarah’s approach that the knee-jerk controversy about FAQs and banned words failed to appreciate, and that is why it has stood the test of time.

Fast forward to 2024. We’ve come a very long way with digital service transformation across the public and private sectors, but there’s plenty yet to transform, and everything built so far needs continuous upkeep. Meanwhile, the context today's service users inhabit feels increasingly shaky, and we know a lot more than we ever did about their growing expectations and diverse needs. We also face new opportunities and unknowable threats from generative artificial intelligence tools, proliferating and improving at a dizzying rate.

If you ask me, we need skilled, confident content designers now more than ever.

Facing so much uncertainty, it’s vital to provide clear and concise services for the things people can control. With an evolved awareness of people’s differences, we have an even greater duty to make services more open and accessible. And while everyone can generate content with a few prompts, only humans – working to the methods set out in this book – can design and fact-check it with empathy, accuracy, and clarity. (Do let the machines assist you, by all means!)

Of all the catchy slogans that came out of the UK’s Government Digital Service, my favourite is ‘doing the hard work to make things simple’. That’s what content design is.

The hardest work happens not at the web interface, but in the organisation’s culture. A content designer’s success depends on relationships and trust, diplomacy, and their ability to delicately balance principles and pragmatism to take content owners on the journey of understanding they are opening up, not dumbing down. It takes courage, empathy and resilience as well as skill with language. I encourage you to take the wisdom from this book, to be bold, and to lean on each other in the content design community for support.

It’s been a delight to witness how the profession has grown and matured in the past decade-and-a-bit, spreading well beyond Sarah, and beyond central government, into councils, charities, cultural institutions and companies all over the world.

This second edition of Content Design is a testament to that longevity and growth, and remains the essential text for anyone starting out or honing their craft to make things better for users.

Neil Williams

January 2024

Executive Director of Technology

and Digital Transformation

at the British Film Institute

Former Head of GOV.UK

in the Government Digital Service

Author’s note

I first wrote this book to go with the introduction to the content design course I was running. The book was basically a hand out, and I wrote it with a cat on my lap and several small children poking about.

Content Design London was not yet a thing, and I popped the book on Amazon, just to see if anyone wanted it. I had no idea it would go so well.

We now have 8 courses, have trained over 3,000 people and sold over 16,000 books.

But.

Learning is a constant process.

As soon as the book was out, I’d already learnt so much more that we should include. Fast forward a few years and I still hadn’t updated it. I thought about it a lot. Like A LOT. Didn’t do anything with it though.

Until summer 2023 when Rachel, Sarah Sheerman-Chase and I got together in a cottage in Yorkshire, in the rain, and hammered out what needed to happen. At that point, Rachel suggested so many ideas, so many edits and so much content – she became a co-author. Can I just say, her rapid, spot-on first drafts are better than anything I do after my third edit. Without Rachel and Sarah, this book would not be here.

And (as you’ll read on page 232), content needs to be cared for and maintained. Even books. Language changes. So do behaviours and attitudes. So does technology. This book deals with all of those, so it needed to change too.

TL;DR – there’s a new chapter (journey and empathy mapping) and we’ve updated some things.

In some ways, this book feels like