Hi! Could you show us an excellent example of content design in practice? I love UX and understood that this was a part of it. In thinking about it, I can see where it needs to be its own strand. Eye opening for sure.
Great question, @TBartolet. One good example is the way that Shopify encode their content design guidelines and practices into their product design system, Polaris. Here’s a screen capture that shows how they guide their teams to use content and design to help their customers complete tasks quickly and with more confidence:
An excerpt from Shopify’s Polaris design system.
There are plenty of other great examples of content in design systems, including Google, Adobe, 18F, and many more!
One of my favorite examples of content design in product comes from Andy Welfle, who’s a co-author of the book Writing is Designing: Words and the User Experience. Here we see a push notification from the Lyft app that informs the user that their Lyft driver is either deaf or hard of hearing:
A push notification from Lyft
This is a great example of content design that’s human-centered with inclusivity in mind. As Andy writes, “…the percentage of Lyft drivers with a hearing difference must be pretty low. This is a great example of Lyft practicing inclusion to make the experience for those drivers better. Rather than being flustered about answering a phone call they couldn’t hear, they could pull over, text back, and communicate in a way more comfortable for them.”
So helpful - thank you! Love the tone spectrum from Adobe especially.
To change current process, we need to work with the team. communicate and follow due dates.
Planning your content in a process will give you a birds-eye view of what will be the outcome.
Hi Jonathon, im just starting on my content creation Journey, and i want to build a sustainable career out of it by helping many companies, organisations and individuals in Africa (since i am from Botswana) , taking the Hubspot free content marketing course is one way i thought would help me on my journey.
I would like to know how else i could turn my dream into a reality, what other steps could i take and what are some of the key areas i should focus on. What advice could you give to me and lastly what is the future of content marketing /content creation.
Dumela, @CSibanda! Le kae?
I love that you’re on this journey into content marketing! And yes, HubSpot Academy’s content marketing certification course is a great way to learn the fundamentals.
Unfortunately, content marketing isn’t my area of focus, so I don’t have much insight into its future. But perhaps other members of our community can help out. Join our Content Marketing Study Group to meet other folks , get your questions answered, and share your ideas!
For companies without an in-house designer, what would you recommend as a first hire?
Title, experience, etc.
Howdy, @ctwtn! I think the first content design hire you’d want to make onto a startup product team should be someone who can grow and scale as your startup grows and scales.
So while they’ll be focused on product content in their day-to-day work, you should be looking for someone who:
- Can create principles (see an example) and guidelines (example) for voice, tone, and style for others to follow
- Has experience building and defining terminology (see a template)
- Will later move into team leadership
People like this may call themselves content designers, UX writers, or content strategists. I’d look for someone who has previous experience working in product startups and has been embedded with product teams. Ideally, you’d also look for someone who’s familiar with product and design concepts and practices even if it’s not their main focus.
Rachel McConnell is a content leader with BT who’s written a whole book on this subject called Why you need a content team and how to build one — check it out!
Hi,
Im happy to join such a thriving community of positive contributors. Can you please tell us with an example if content design follows product development projects that are derived from overall goals of the organisation? If so, how does the workflow initiate in this case?
@Raheel_Malik Thanks, we’re so happy to have you!
Yes, in mature and healthy product orgs, content design work originates from product strategy and vision, customer feedback and input, research insights, the competitive landscape, and other sources that are strongly tied to the overall goals of the organization.
In orgs like this where content designers are set up for success, they usually initiate the work directly themselves because they’re directly embedded with a product manager in a team. Alternatively, the work might be initiated by a design manager/leader who then provides a content designer to take on the work. In either case, the content design work to be done would be based on some tenet of company or product strategy.
Unfortunately, because things like company/product strategy are almost always kept under wraps and we only see the finished, launched product, it’s hard to provide an example for this. That said, I’d welcome examples from others in the community!
Well, that’s a wrap folks! Thanks to everyone for all your great questions. I really enjoyed chatting with you about content design and how to write the user experience of products.
I want to leave you with a few resources you can turn to if you’d like to learn more about content design and UX writing. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you ever have questions or need more info.
Books:
- Content Design by Sarah Winters
- Conversational Design by Erika Hall
- Strategic Writing for UX by Torrey Podmajersky
- Voice Content and Usability by Preston So
- Writing for Designers by Scott Kubie
- Writing is Designing by Michael J. Metts & Andy Welfle
Communities and other resources:
Events: