Teamwork, research and hidden effort: a year of content design at BT
In this post, content designer Frances Whinder reflects on what she’s learnt in her first year at BT.
I’ve had a range of content roles over the past 10 years. I was a medical editor, then a journalist, then editor of a magazine, before making the transition to digital. I was introduced to content design while in the digital team at the Multiple Sclerosis Society. We had a brilliant manager who shifted our focus to using evidence to produce content that met the needs of the MS community, rather than just the needs of the organisation.
Armed with that grounding in evidence-based content, I joined BT as a content designer 12 months ago. It’s been a big adjustment working for a huge, commercially driven organisation — albeit one that’s embracing human-centred design. If you’re thinking about making a similar leap and wondering what to expect, here are a few things I’ve learnt.
- Content design is a team sport
In BT Consumer Digital, we work in squads, each dedicated to a particular user journey. I’ve been in three squads so far, each with a slightly different make up, but broadly, most product squads have a product owner, a product designer, a content designer, a content editor, engineer, data analyst, and scrum master. We’re supported by other specialists, such as user researchers and SEO experts, who might be embedded in one squad or helping several.
This contrasts with my previous roles, particularly as a journalist and magazine editor. Then, I’d come up with an idea, research it, and write and edit an article. It was an isolated existence. Now, I do everything as part of a team, contributing my own expertise and drawing on that of others. It’s sometimes tricky having lots of views on a product, but ultimately, we’re all challenging each other to do the best thing for our users.
2. Content design and product design need each other
As content designer, I work most closely with the squad’s product designer. We’re both focused on understanding our users and their needs and working out what steps a journey should have. Then I’ll look at what content should be included at each stage, and the product designer will look at the interface and interaction design.
I believe content design and product design depend on each other — neither can succeed alone. Before coronavirus, I sat next to my squad’s product designer and we’d speak all day, regularly disappearing to a quiet space to find a solution to a problem together. Now we’re working from home, the combination of Slack and Figma keeps collaboration easy.
I’m happy for a product designer to comment on ‘my’ content and I know I can comment on ‘their’ UI and UX, too. Our skills are weighted differently, but they do overlap, and the end result is better when we’ve learnt from each other.
3. There’s no substitute for watching users interact with your product
One of the things that most excited me about joining BT was having an in-house user research team. Working for a charity, budget for user research was a rarity, so we’d often use less direct ways of finding out what our users thought — looking on forums and social media, or using Google trends, for example.
Those tools are helpful, and I still use them today. But I’ve learnt that there’s nothing quite like watching a user interact with your site or prototype, particularly with a skilled user researcher asking the right questions at the right moment.
Users stumble over language we think is commonplace, take unexpected routes, hesitate over calls to action we thought were clear. Every time we do user research, we make a leap forward in improving our journeys.
4. Productivity isn’t measured in word counts
In my previous roles, my productivity was easy to measure. In a day, I’d edit a research article, or write a 1,000 word feature, or proofread an issue of a magazine, or edit two pieces from community bloggers.
As a content designer at BT, most of my work is done before any words are written (or other content produced). I might spend a morning understanding why we’re seeing drop-off at a particular point in a journey, looking at the analytics, a heat map, and session replays. Then I’ll spend the afternoon talking to our product designer about whether we need to change the position and wording of a call to action, and planning an A/B test. After a day’s work, the only change might be a button, but there was a huge amount of thought — and evidence — behind it.
Have you moved to content design from another discipline, or made a leap between sectors? We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.
