How to become a content designer
Everyone starts somewhere. You are here.
As a lead content designer and recruiting manager, I get asked for advice a lot about how people can get into content design.
In my last round of recruitment to hire a new content designer for my team, I had 46 applications. And after repeating the same feedback and suggestions across several emails I thought: ‘Why not just write a Medium article about this and link to it?’
So whether you’re just starting out or recovering from a recruitment rejection, I hope this is helpful to break into the world of content design.
Before we begin: what is content design?
Content design is essentially the same as user experience (UX) design, but with more emphasis on designing digital information and services rather than releasing commercial products. All the human-centred, design thinking theory applies, we’re just more focused on applying, reporting and paying for things. Content design is on the rise, especially in the public sector where GOV.UK is the definitive source of how it’s done.
Ok, let’s get into it…
Frame yourself as a content designer
Think of this as the ‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have’ principle.
Don’t tell me you’re a content marketer, graphic designer or social media person looking to get into content design. Show me you are a content designer, who just happens to be working in marketing or social right now. Don’t make me work to think how your experience could translate to content design. Tell me that you’re already the person on the job description.
Remember your CV is itself a piece of content, so use it to show you understand what good, clear design looks like. You can find inspiration for CVs in places like the Figma community, then replicate ideas you like either in Figma or simply using Word or Google Docs.
Speaking of CVs, resist the temptation to write your autobiography. Keep it short. One page. If I want to read more I’ll check out your LinkedIn. So get on LinkedIn if you’re not already.
Read some articles (and maybe even a book)
It’s all very well me telling you to present yourself as a content designer, but what if you don’t know anything about content design? Well, that’s just unacceptable. There’s loads of learning and exploring you can do quickly, and often for free.
You can start right here on Medium: start reading UX Planet and UX Collective and subscribe to the latter’s newsletter.
I also highly recommend exploring articles on the Nielsen Norman Group website. That site is a goldmine of UX research distilled into accessible write-ups. If you read nothing else, study Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics.
Books are more of a commitment. But if you get to an interview, showing you’ve actually read a book relevant to content design will score you major points.
Which one? I cannot recommend Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things highly enough. It’s over a decade old now, but while the examples are fast getting out of date the theory is still relevant because it’s all based on human psychology.
So get onto Amazon, eBay or pop down the library and get a copy. And come to your content designer interview with Don’s 7 principles of design and 3 levels of emotional design tucked up your sleeve.
Complete an online course
Don’t stop at just reading. Do an actual course. Ideally several. Some of these might cost a small amount of money, but this is your new career as a content designer we’re talking about. Treat yo self.
Which courses? Introduction to Content Design by FutureLearn is an obvious one.
There are also loads of content design-relevant courses on the Interaction Design Foundation website, covering topics from UX research and usability testing to user interface (UI) design. The topics are categorised from beginner to advanced, so there’s something for you whatever level you’re at.
The point with courses is you take on a subject in a structured way, along with others, and you get a certificate at the end. The certificate may not be an ‘official’ qualification, but it shows you’ve committed to something relevant to being a content designer and seen it through to the end.
Get to grips with accessibility
If you want to be a content designer, you must be familiar with digital accessibility (also known as universal or inclusive design).
Around 1 in 5 people in the UK have some form of disability or impairment. This could include difficulties with vision, hearing, mobility or cognitive functions. If things like websites and apps aren’t designed accessibly, these people are excluded from online information and services.
Not only is designing inclusively the right thing to do, in the public sector it’s the law: we’re required to meet Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.
You don’t have to learn the entirety of WCAG. But do learn the basics, e.g. the four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust (POUR), and what they mean.
I also recommend having SCULPT in mind when it comes to accessibility. It’s a simple acronym that covers the essentials about headings, colours, images, links, language and tables. It’s also easy to recall in an interview.
Remember that accessibility isn’t a plaster you stick on a design at the end. It’s about designing inclusively for everyone’s needs from the start. Anyone can become disabled or impaired, even temporarily. And even if they don’t, accessible content is easier to use and understand for everyone.
Learn about user research
Content design is user-centred design. It’s about the human experience, and how people feel about interacting with digital information and services.
You can’t understand any of that without doing some actual user research. Heuristics are great as guiding principles, but you need to connect to real users too.
So learn how user research works as part of a design thinking approach. The key here is about empathy — what are users’ goals? What frustrates them? What will solve their problem?
The point here is to show as part of a content designer application that you know about UX research approaches like surveys, focus groups, user interviews and techniques like card sorting or tree testing. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done them for real. Just show you know about these things, and why it’s important to do them.
Get some practical experience
Now we’re getting into the nitty-gritty. Theory is great, but you know what else is great? Having some actual, practical skills.
You don’t need have to have worked as a website editor before to apply for a content designer role. But experience really helps. The good news is you can build practical content design skills for free. You could start up your own WordPress site. Start posting on Medium or Substack. Even creating threads on X is something.
Learn what a content management system (CMS) is, and how to use it. Show that you’re confident managing web content, and could hit the ground running doing day-to-day content edits and publishing with little training.
For more advanced, specific skills, you can create your own little projects to work on. Need inspiration? Check out sites like UX Tools which provides UX Design Challenges to develop skills in things like wireframing, prototyping and Information Architecture (IA) diagrams.
You don’t have to create a UX portfolio to become a content designer, but having one or two case studies to talk about— even if they’re hypothetical, made-up projects — can help.
Stay on top of technology trends
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ll know we’re going through an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. From ChatGPT, Claude and Bard to DALL-E, Midjourney and many others, we’re starting to see the potential of generative AI text, images and much more.
There’s no doubt that AI is a game-changer, and as technology changes it has implications for content design. While we may not be on the bleeding edge of new technology adoption in public sector content design teams, we need to stay on top of developments. We need to know about emerging products and benefits, as well as the potential risks.
Basically, we need to know how the digital landscape is changing.
The easiest way for a content designer to stay up to date with AI is to subscribe to newsletters like The Rundown and The Deep View. If you get really into it, you can also follow AI-focused accounts on X, and join AI Reddit communities and Discord servers.
It seems like there are new AI apps and tools coming out literally every day, and a curious content designer can use these to their advantage for practical day-to-day work. Staying in the loop ensures you don’t turn up for an interview with practices in mind that are outdated.
But don’t limit yourself to AI. Product design is moving beyond websites and apps you’d use on a laptop and phone, and into things like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and other forms of human-computer interaction (HCI). By keeping up to date with everything, you’ll ensure you’ve got a solid foundation of knowledge as a content designer.
Learn how to write good content
This is up there with framing yourself as a content designer as the most important guidance in this article.
Why is it at the bottom, then? The Serial Position Effect. (Reading up on the Laws of UX doesn’t hurt as an aspiring content designer; a lot of what we do is about psychology.)
The core skill of content design is writing. Not beautiful, meandering prose, but plain English: clear, concise language that’s easy to scan, understand and act upon.
To reiterate, you do not need to be able to write like Hemingway to be a content designer. In fact, the Hemingway Editor app is specifically designed to help you avoid long, complex and idiosyncratic writing.
Every content design team worth its salt will maintain its own content guidelines — the ultimate truth of what good content looks like for that team, its organisation and the content authors it might coordinate. For example, at Suffolk County Council we publish our content guidelines on suffolk.gov.uk.
‘Read some guidelines’ isn’t very sexy advice. Probably another reason this section isn’t at the top. But if you want to work within a particular content design team, try to track down their guidelines so you know how they do things.
Summary
If you’re an aspiring content designer, I hope this article helps. Here are the key takeaways:
- Frame yourself as a content designer in your CV and job application (based on all the things you’ve done below)
- Read articles and books to build up some broad knowledge of content and UX design ideas and principles
- Complete an online course to learn in a structured way and show commitment to a specialist subject
- Get to grips accessibility — including WCAG principles, SCULPT and why we should design inclusively
- Understand how user research works —including some example techniques, and why it’s important to empathise with users
- Gain some practical experience of content publishing and designing things through your own site or hypothetical projects
- Stay on top of technology trends like AI and emerging design considerations such as VR, AR and other forms of HCI
- Learn how to write and structure good content in plain English — and find out if there are any guidelines you should be looking into
Final thoughts
Qualifications and professional experience are certainly advantages in applying for content design roles. But you can see that it’s possible to build up a content design profile informally, and often for free.
Do not overlook how important passion, dedication and aptitude are when going for content design jobs. Showing you’ve been willing to do reading, courses and develop skills and experience in your own time goes a long way.
As a lead content designer and a recruitment manager, I’m not hiring a bunch of qualifications. I’m hiring people. And I want to get the right person for the job, and our team.
That could be you.
About the author
Andrew Tipp is a lead content designer and digital UX professional. He works in local government for Suffolk County Council, where he manages a content design team. You can follow him on Medium and connect on LinkedIn.
