In the UK, the Government Digital Service (GDS) was faced with a content glut. In the early 2010s, its one stop shop platform for citizens to access digital government services, GOV.UK, had 75,000 separate pages of information.

But over the course of a year, through revamping pages, posts and digital content, this was reduced to just 3,000 pages. Reducing the overwhelming amount of words to sift through saved time for the citizen and saved money for the government.

It was only possible because Sarah Richards, who became head of content design for the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) from 2011 until 2014, was given a blank slate to redesign the UK government’s entire digital content strategy to help citizens better access digital government services. Richards was thrilled but nervous. “It was like Christmas, but it was terrifying,” she said.

In the redesign, Richards made a case for an entirely different approach to digital content in government: content design. The new term reflected a new way of thinking: content design isn’t about writing lengthy articles that are posted online, but instead creating user-centered material that gets the user to what they need as quickly as possible.

The UK government had to change how they used the written word as a key part of their digital strategy — without it, the information was overwhelming and preventing citizens from engaging. Hardwired into Richards’ content design process is putting people first: considering the needs of the user throughout, thinking in the language they use and workshopping their priorities.

What is content design?

Content designers are part of the core digital delivery team and Richards believes that good government content design builds trust. “With governments, you have to think about transparency first,” she said. “We did some research at the very beginning and found that people trusted the BBC [the UK’s public service broadcaster] more than they did the government.”

This was because the government frequently published duplicate information, on many different websites, often on the same or similar topics — compared to the BBC, where the digital content had a clear purpose and end point.

Content designers are tasked with building this trust, illustrated by the Australian government’s Digital Transformation Agency, who said that “it’s the content in a digital service that the users come for”. They’re part of every stage of the service design and digital delivery process — working on prototypes with real content, developing information architecture and testing content to make sure it’s readable and easy to find.

Richards believes that content design is a way of thinking. Content designers are trying to create the best possible interaction for the user — and quickly. “Content design means you need to get to the point as quickly as possible,” she said.

Instead of choosing a 400-word article by default as the best way to communicate with citizens, the discipline encompasses all kinds of content: video, tools and carefully scrutinised written word, each chosen for their efficiency.

“Some people criticise this as dumbing down,” she said. “But it’s much harder than it looks. And it’s not dumbing down: making something simple is about respecting people’s time.”

For example, on the GOV.UK site, “learn how to drive a car” is split up into six segments — giving the user a checklist that they must follow, while not overloading them with information by providing a drop-down menu at each stage.

For something that saves citizens’ time, it took a while for people to come on side with the new discipline. People accused Richards of having delusions of grandeur. What was so special about the written word that made it a key part of a digital transformation effort?

But once they saw the results, opinions started to change. When interviewed, Joshua Marshall, former head of accessibility at GDS, said that improving the quality of all the written content on GOV.UK made more of a difference than anything else on the entire government-wide site.

Improving the content saved time for users — who can spend less time on GOV.UK, now able to find the right service sooner. And it saved money, too. In 2015, the UK government reported that the GOV.UK platform had saved £61.5 million in one year alone.

Building a user journey

Content design’s simplicity shouldn’t be mistaken for a reduction in workload. A lengthy and considered process takes place long before the pen hits paper, based on user research and the precise use of particular words and headings. Unlike traditional feature writing, for example, it’s not instinctive but meticulously planned.

Richards starts by mapping out user experience. It’s not just figuring out how the person interacts with the service as it stands, but looking to their past and figuring out how and why the person accessed the service in the first place. The backward look can have a big impact — because it shows you where you’ve not been clear with your digital content.

One example of this is Richards’ work with Citizens Advice, a network of UK consumer charities that provide guidance on issues related to money, legal or consumer problems. She met a man who was soon to be sleeping on the streets, and listened as an advisor unpicked his journey to getting there, the policies he encountered and where he read about them.

In doing so, the team found that he’d been made redundant illegally — but at that time, if you had searched for redundancy guidance from the government, it mainly covered how to shape your CV. “All it needed to say was ‘check your redundancy notice is legal’. What’s that, six words?” said Richards.

The confusing website had made a real impact, and consolidated Richards’ view: “you need to look at how someone has ended up where they are.”

Another approach, like user journey mapping, that puts the user at the centre of content design is empathy mapping. This technique articulates on the page what a content designer might know about a certain type of user.

Richards advocates splitting your map into four different quadrants:

Both approaches speed up the writing process, which is done last. “All of your questions should have been answered,” said Richards. “There’s no need for questions like ‘what words are they using?’ or ‘will this reach them?’” The content designer should already know.

Let’s get critical

This meticulous planning also extends to getting frequent feedback from others in your team, which Richards recommends at every stage of the process, both in planning and writing. She uses “critique” — more informally known as “crits” — for content designers to check their work as they go and get feedback on how to make their content more user-centred and efficient.

Richards got the idea from her years at art school, where crits are commonplace. Unlike her art school days, where they very much meant receiving criticism, constructive or otherwise, Richards’ crits are more collaborative.

Participants ask questions of the person being critiqued. What’s the user's need? If it's a written post, can the reader understand the piece by only reading its headings? Has accessibility been considered — could it be read by a screen reader?

Richards recommends constant crits. “Crit early, crit often,” she said. “If you see something for the first time just as it’s about to go live, it’s too late.”

The frequent feedback means that content designers are constantly pushed on how their work makes accessing a digital service as easy as possible. This constant thinking — “what does a user really need from this?” — is something that can drive all digital transformation efforts.— Apolitical

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