Content design needs content design
The number one challenge for content designers is not influence. It’s our job description.
Hi, my name is Hannah and I’m a content designer.
But if we’re being honest, I’m also a
- UX writer
- content strategist
- user researcher
- service designer
- UX designer
- accessibility consultant
- SEO specialist
- analytics specialist
- project manager
- business analyst
- designer
- developer
- writing teacher
- public speaker
- salesperson
I’m not saying I’m an expert in all those things. But I do have to dip in and out of those skillsets every day to do my job.
I feel like content design is a single mum in 7-inch heels with four kids and an 80-hour work week, who got sold on the idea of having it all — then realised that having it all meant projecting an ideal of domestic, professional and physical flawlessness at all times, and, failing to do so, turned into a raging alcoholic with PTSD triggered every time someone mentions the phrase “career woman”.
Can we be honest about the fact that sometimes, the scope of our role is unrealistic?
Jack of all trades; master of none
Content designers are — by design — generalists. We’re that cog that connects all the other project wheels; we need to have a holistic view of user and business needs while simultaneously juggling granular design components, defining development criteria, creating the information architecture, writing the metadata and running approximately 2.2 workshops per second.
But we’re also specialists. We make words read good. And I think that specialism gets lost sometimes.
If we took our own professional advice, we’d strip the sh*t out of our job description.
When did the content design role get so bloated? I think it stems from a few areas:
- Content designers come from a huge range of backgrounds.
We’ve somehow absorbed that diversity of skills as a requirement for all content designers. - Content design is still a very new field.
In trying to prove our value, we’re trying to do too much. - Employers don’t have a clear idea of what content design is.
Content design job ads often read like a wish list for 5 different roles — and no one is calling them out on it.
If we took our own professional advice, we’d strip the sh*t out of our job description.
Redefining content design: the rise of the specialist
In our lofty ambitions of transforming the world — one simple sentence at a time—we’ve broken the golden rule. We’ve confused our user.
I don’t think the GOV.UK definition of content design is helping us here:
“Content designers make things easier for people to understand and use.”
The requirements for content design roles vary massively because the scope of content design is quite literally everything.
But we’re also calling a huge range of roles the same thing — and blending them together in endless combinations.
Maybe instead of trying to bring all of the many and varied content designers under one title, we should think of content design like medicine.
You wouldn’t expect a podiatrist to do open heart surgery — nor should you expect a content designer who’s only worked on government websites to have the same skills as someone who specialises in food delivery apps.
Content design is a practice. We have some core skills—but we’re not interchangeable.
And to the next employer looking for a Content/UX/UI/accessibility/SEO person… I have a message for you.
An open letter to recruiters
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want.
If you’re looking for a “UX-er”, I can tell you that I don’t have omniscient website design knowledge.
But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people using legal jargon.
If you let the unrealistic parts of my job description go, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you.
But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
Did I say kill? Hahahahaha. I definitely would not do that.
(Liam Neeson might. If he were a content designer.)
