Design is human-centered; it serves human needs and goals. Design thinking coupled with content strategy helps us make informed design decisions.
Design thinking is an approach for problem solving. Design thinking is the process of constructing the way to think and applying this framework to new kinds of problems. Tim Brown states in his talk, Designers — think big!, that design thinking in design is a balance between desirability (what humans need), economic viability, and technical feasibility. It generates solutions by first asking the right questions.
Content strategy follows a similar approach. Content strategist Kristina Halvorson writes, “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content…”
“It plots an achievable roadmap for individuals and organizations to create and maintain content that audiences will actually care about. It provides specific, well-informed recommendations about how we’re going to get from where we are today (no content, or bad content, or too much content) to where we want to be (useful, usable content people will actually care about).”
Assessing and improving the quality of a product’s content also begins by analysis: asking the right questions. Content strategy articulates the why, where, who, what, and how of the content.
To produce effective results involves working out content strategy within the process of design thinking. While the goal of content strategy is to reflect, in all sincerity, the tone of voice and personality of the product, service, or business, it is design thinking that frames this conversation and relationship to the user and brings it to realization.
Practicing both design thinking and content strategy require empathy for people and their circumstances, an understanding of culture and context, and both involve prototypes. Their processes, however, generally produce different outcomes and levels of visibility. While content is readily seen and forms the product’s identity from the first interaction, design thinking is the engine in which content strategy is produced. They work in tandem, taking different responsibilities for the many components in the end user’s experience.
