It’s important to produce content that’s factually correct.
But for content owners in government and other organisations, this often means using jargon or technical language in digital tools and when describing services.
And so users of this content – members of the public, businesses and customers of government – have to spend valuable time trying to work out what it all means.
Jargon doesn’t work for users.
It gets in the way of what they want to do. It prevents them from using a service or completing an application for something important.
This is where good content design comes in.
What is content design?
Good content design is about writing – for user needs.
Good content design means using language that users understand and find relevant. It’s about providing content when users need it and in the way they expect.
Good content design works seamlessly with design to provide an intuitive user experience.
Good content design is about iteration.
This means the content is updated, tweaked or re-written after being tested repeatedly with target user groups.
As a senior content designer I…
I work as part of an Agile digital team – in collaboration with government and other specialists – producing everything from transactional content to micro content.
Here are some examples of the types of transactional content I’ve worked on:
⁓ applying for a service, product or status
⁓ setting up or managing a user account
⁓ notifying government of a change of circumstance
⁓ registering as an agent
Good content design focuses on the needs of the customer, in other words, the user (customer) needs.
And taking user needs as the starting point, I craft content that helps users to get on with what they want to do, whether it’s applying for something or finding out how to do something.
Let’s talk about your digital project.