Skills I never knew I needed to be a content designer

Content designer Sheida Heidari explains how working in the design team helps close skills gaps.

At the start of your content design career, you start to see the same list of requirements to be a content designer. It usually includes having a basic knowledge of agile, experience proofreading, editing and an understanding of accessibility. Over the past few years, the list has grown but you don’t tend to find out what they are until you start your content design role. Surprise!

My time at BT has allowed me to develop skills I never thought I needed to be a content designer, and I’m thankful for it. Here’s a list of some of the things I’ve had to pick up in my current role:

Use Figma (and not just at a basic level)

You might be familiar with Figma if you work closely with your product designer. But you’ve probably felt like a guest in someone else’s house when you need to make a content change in the design file. “Would you mind updating this call-to-action button” or “Could you update this label throughout the whole journey please” — sound familiar?

As a content designer, Figma always seemed like the tool to use towards the end of design work. It was something that product designers needed for their entire role and we come in to do the finishing touches and sense check. This just makes collaborating so much more complex and I’ve come to realise Figma is a program to use alongside our other set of tools like Mural, and one to be confident making changes and designs solo.

I’m not saying content designers need to become Figma experts and start creating their own components, but wouldn’t it be great to confidently export a single frame to share, insert a component from your library or hide features within a component without relying on your product designer?

How I’m developing this skillset

Luckily at BT we have Figma 101 training sessions where experienced product designers give a crash course on Figma essentials for content designers. Specialist product designer (and the organiser and trainer of this course), Mark Winter, found the right balance of information without overwhelming content designers and carried them out in-person so everyone felt comfortable to ask questions.

Here’s what Mark had to say about the training sessions:

“Through talking to content designers at BT we found there were some common missing gaps in what content designers really needed to know to use Figma effectively. I worked with Chris Smith, Lead Content Designer, to create a step-by-step tutorial where content designers could edit and add text, create improved hierarchy of information, communicate efficiently, smart ways to prepare for testing and how to share your work. It was important these sessions happened in person so that as trainers, we were on hand to support. We keep the session to 2 1/2 hours so that content designers have ample time to complete the tasks and can ask questions throughout and at the end.”

Showcase designs to stakeholders

It’s easier to step back when you’re in a meeting and your product owner automatically volunteers the product designer to showcase the designs you’ve also been involved in designing.

The only time you might get to do this is if your product designer is away or they can’t make the meeting. There’s been too many times where I get caught off guard and panic about which designs to share. It can be nerve-wracking especially with the questions that will no doubt follow when you’re done presenting, but out of all the scary skills to learn, this is the most important one.

How I’m developing this skillset

Instead of waiting for the rare opportunity to happen, I’ve started volunteering to showcase designs even when the product designer is there! Starting small by showing small journeys or single frames to the team during refinement sessions or crits and then working my way up to present at bigger company meetings.

Not only does this increase confidence, but it makes you and your role more visible to the company. You also get the opportunity to talk about content rationale behind design decisions as you present which might not get showcased when your product designer is presenting.

Carry out independent content research

This really depends on the structure of your organisation but most likely you’ll have a dedicated team of user researchers who carry out research you need for your squad. Sometimes usability testing takes precedent and there just isn’t enough time in a testing session to ask the participants questions about the content.

As content designers, we know that a huge part of our role involves research and we can’t just ‘come up with the words’ without the knowledge and insight to help us decide what words we should be using and where it needs to go.

How I’m developing this skillset

At BT I’m spoilt by being surrounded by supportive user researchers who are happy to guide you through independent content research and advise on what tests you can carry out.

Search term mining is a great way to investigate Google trends and key word usage to guide your language to the popular phrases customers are familiar with.​ It’s something you can carry out anytime and you don’t need to rely on anyone.

Another quick research method is a survey which can help find out which terminology a user would use to name, explain or describe features and services, as well as terms that confuse them.​

You can even set up your own research like a highlighter test. You get a sample of your text and a red and green highlighter. You give participants the text and ask them to highlight in green what made them feel confident about the product, and in red what made them feel less confident. I’ve done this with long-form content and not only was it insightful, but I got to see results straightaway.

Persuade and be your own cheerleader

When I first started out as a content designer, I might’ve been a little naive to think stakeholders would understand the value of content design and not just think of us as ‘wordsmiths’.

I’ve learnt that a big part of the role is educating and advocating, which is why it feels like you’re always trying to convince people you deserve to be at that meeting or need to celebrate your content wins and shout about it.

How I’m developing this skillset

A valuable lesson I’ve learnt during my time at BT is to show, not tell. As content designers, we often find ourselves in meetings talking about content decisions but having trouble convincing the rest of the stakeholders on the call the validity of the decisions. Instead of sounding like a broken record, I’m trying to show more data during these meetings, so it helps explain things in a way that makes more sense to them and clearly demonstrates the purpose of the content decisions is to not only help the user, but help the organisation achieve their goals.