The Readability Guidelines project concluded in 2020. Copies of the book went around the world, and the wiki remains available for anyone who wants to use it. 30,000 people used the Guidelines in 2021. Sitting next to the designers while at work one day, focusing on user needs, looking at the research and everything - and I was reminded of the conversation that I'd just had with Tom Loosemore where the words 'content design' had come up - and we were like, 'that's it!'" I see many content designers spending their time talking – arguing – about points of style when often accessibility and usability show what we should do.

This book is short, lively and practical. Using real-world examples and imagined examples, it takes the reader through the content design process one step at a time, explaining everything along the way. What’s in the book Chapter 1: Why content matters There we go. So that will come out. There's going to be one on research and content and how to do that directly. There's one on delivery and content.

What’s in the book

A user story is an idea borrowed from agile software development. It’s a way of pinning down what the team need to do, without telling them how to do it. User stories help you narrow your focus. Each one describes a need, and they cover a wide range of audiences. A user story looks like this: And listen, this is actually a thing that is happening right now with a lot of content design leaders that I'm talking to. Because here in the US, content design as a practice has just exploded. I mean, I don't know any products that we use daily and love and trust, again, digital products that don't have active, if not robust, content design teams sitting within the organization. And the folks that are leading those teams are now starting to wrangle with much larger questions than, how do I advocate for my team's work? They're now, how do I create career pathways for these folks so that they're not hitting the content glass ceiling? How do I adequately participate in and meaningfully participate in conversations about the future of this product as a whole and not just this feature, for example. And they don't have any well worn pathways. They are needing to make stuff up as they go along to move into those leadership roles. So do we need more content people in those roles? Yes. Is there a path to those roles in those organizations? There is not. A move to the Co-Op followed, where Sarah took up the position of Content Strategist. It was a return to one of her biggest passions:

How we read, including eye fixation zones, memory and typography. Chapter 3: Content discovery and research In the early 2010s, Sarah and her team at the Government Digital Service looked to user-centred design techniques to transform their content.

Files

See? You can't see her, but she's emanating a rosy glow of good health and good intentions and warmth. Okay, that's all I got. Should we just wrap there? If you write using the audience’s vocabulary (and if you aren’t doing that, what are you doing?) and use good content design principles, then you don’t need an FAQ to help you out. “FAQs will expose our bugs and usability issues” So it's a hybrid, it's got some content strategy in there. So what are you publishing and why? But it's also how to deal with people, like you were just saying, right? It's culture change, it's organizational design, it's that sort of thing. So it is how to run a project end to end, because a lot of our market are single content people sitting in organizations doing it themselves, and they're trying to change this huge behemoth of an organization by themselves. So it is particularly for those types of people to be able to say, right, I will do this and then I will do this, and then I will do this and this is why I'm doing it. So that's the first one. Passionate about learning and teaching, Sarah organised education events at universities in North America before working in content. She led training alongside her content work at Expedia, Cazoo and the Financial Ombudsman. Sarah has extensive experience designing help centre content and a strong interest in accessibility. Jas Deogan The guide is no longer being updated. But it is still available for anyone who wants to make style decisions based on evidence and data.

Learn how to correctly use headings, writing and punctuation, plain language, emotional language and images for usability and accessibility. Chapter 8: Pair writing

A couple of Susan’s points

A typical week for Sarah may be a mixture of attending a conference, a meetup or a 'lunch and learn', presenting to groups like an organisation's board to explain what content design is (because perhaps there's an internal project which is just not being listened to and supported by them enough). The best way to enter an alpha is with an open mind of “what am I going to learn?”, not “what am I going to achieve?” And so the titles just matter within an organization and they can say, well, this is just what it's called here. But it creates such a massive headache not only for organizations who are trying to recruit for the right skill set, but also for people who are trying to find work that matches their skill set, and figuring out how to position themselves in the marketplace. Rachel is interested in helping people access information and participate in decisions that affect them. She specialises in using content design to help people understand policy, services and their rights. She has worked extensively in parliament and government, as well as for private sector clients. Nia Campbell Sarah is experienced in leading global and UK-based digital projects through a human-centred lens. She’s passionate about accessibility and has extensive experience in the culture, education and charity sectors. Rich Prowse

From 2018 to 2020, Content Design London (CDL) led a global effort to create an open, universal, inclusive style guide for the content community. And that I think has caused, I've spoken to a couple of folks in the UK who are a little bit tearing their hair out because a lot of the folks that are walking through the door to interview are coming from this GDS practice, or they've worked at the GDS and they're saying, here's what content design is and here's exactly how it needs to be practiced. And the folks are like, actually, I need you to learn how to work on a product team, which can be a very, very different beast. That I think is creating a challenge, especially now when you can attend a meetup anywhere in the world. You can attend a conference that's hybrid, from wherever, or virtual, It's just causing some confusion. I won't go so far as to say conflict, but what are your thoughts about the differences in terms of how content design is being discussed in practice and potentially how you are teaching it at Content Design London, versus the conversation that is happening around the field of content design here in the US? That's right. Sarah, I usually start off our podcast interviews by asking folks to share their career path to content strategy and content design. So I wonder if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit with our at home audience about where you come from and why you do the things you do. If you have multiple audiences, each of which has different needs for different kinds of content and different levels of detail, you may find user stories better. Mark manages our business and client relations. He leads on operations and contracts with clients, as well as overseeing CDL’s strategy and growth.The team used this new approach to set out a system of content design in the UK Government’s content. In this book, Sarah explains what “content design” really means, and shares how to put it into practice in your organisation.