What coronavirus has taught me about content design
As lockdown restrictions in the UK are reduced, Glenn Sturgess, Senior Content Design Manager at BT, reflects on remote content design in a time of crisis. He shares what he’s learnt whilst working from home and highlights launch successes that have pushed the BT design team to think differently.
There are still so many unknowns about the world we’re now in. In the absence of certainty, I’m reflecting on what’s happened over the last few weeks at BT, EE and Plusnet. It’s a bit of a blur, but nothing short of spectacular too.
A kick we can come back from
Coronavirus sucks. Not wishing to trivialise the impact on people and lives, it’s also been a kick up the behind for our product squads.
There’s new-found energy and urgency to meeting users’ changing needs. For example, the temporary closure of our high-street stores has made digital channels a priority for sales.
We’ve proven our digital team can work smarter, faster and closer to get things live. Early in the crisis, we made sure that people around the country were able to access the equipment, services and skills they needed to connect with friends, loved ones and work colleagues. Pre-coronavirus, we might have been distracted by existing technological constraints, or hidden behind ludicrously long lead-in times for new propositions.
Working remotely, and in a truly agile way, suddenly felt liberating. We prioritised user needs and interactions — and this helped us stick to our plan and see it through. So, in one week flat, EE designers collaborated with product owners and developers to research, scope out, develop and release the first iteration of unlimited data offer to NHS staff. When we can achieve this kind of thing in days not weeks or months, why work in any other way?
On demand is in demand
I worry if some businesses will recover from this necessary lockdown period. When two more high street retailers (that you probably thought had already gone bust) went bust, it reminded me how lucky we are to have a product that people want and can buy online.
Our top priority is always keeping customers connected via mobile, broadband, landline — in any way possible. But people have also been looking for companies like ours to deliver engaging, entertaining and educational content. And they expect it on demand. It’s the same with timely, relevant offers. All these things have added importance in a lockdown scenario.
We became acutely aware of our role in keeping the UK connected. The growing number of people looking for help and guidance makes it even more crucial to champion plain English. And to make our content as accessible and searchable as possible.
We, the people
While I haven’t yearned for my train commute, I have — much to my surprise — missed the office.
The chat, overheard conversations, stuff you pick up in passing and answers you chance upon in conversation. The kitchen banter, the lunchtime stroll with my work buddies. It’s all made better with people. And I miss the relative ease of face-to-face decision-making.
So, we’ve worked harder to keep in touch. In fact, I’ve probably met as many people virtually in the last six weeks as I did in my first six months. We’ve got slicker at collaboration tools. Our Design Ops team has continued their amazing work remotely onboarding people — getting them up and running in record time (during possibly the weirdest start to a new job any of our new colleagues have experienced). And we’ve continued with content crits and pair-writing sessions, and our all-community content collective sessions, while simply making more time to chat and check-in with each other.
Everything for a reason
It’s not the time for a philosophical debate about fate. But I’m a great believer in the saying ‘we are where we are’. Right now, a better understanding and insight is a springboard for great content that follows our principles of user-centred design.
We cannot do this without user research and analytics. One tool we use to get everyone on the same page — or build, measure, learn canvas — is helping us create more valuable content. Pivoting quickly requires rock-solid reasoning and evidence or we’re guessing what our users want. It’s an ideal opportunity to road-test the tools we need to do that. Like Figma which enables us all to see designs in progress, irrespective of platform or browser. And Miro/Mural digital whiteboarding with its powerful real-time collaboration around user needs, constraints and design hypotheses. Cloud apps were made for times like these.
Unexpected times bring unique opportunities
Uncharted, unprecedented and other over-used ‘un’ words. This situation is certainly forcing people on our content team to think creatively and look for opportunities to meet user needs. Two great examples are a broadcast-digital collaboration and a TV production world first.
We joined forces with ITV on broadcast content that has been helping make us more digital-savvy. Like how to download podcasts with Rylan Clark-Neal, how to stay happy and healthy at home with Fearne Cotton and how to take your business online with Jake Humphrey. The website’s seen over 130k visitors and the YouTube tutorials have racked up 11k views.
Over at BT Sport, we’ve taken ‘behind the scenes’ footage to a new level by continuing our live BT Sport programming. Only ever done in a studio before, some shows are now made from the remote comfort of homes, garages and broom cupboards. It’s a monumental effort from our BT Sport crews and talent to produce fully remote live shows, including MotoGP The Greatest Race and Early Kick Off.
What next?
No one knows for sure, but there are silver linings to the gravest of situations. And, I for one, am determined to keep looking for them.
