Content, Voice, and Value

Good content and good design go hand-in-hand — you can’t have one without the other. Content Strategy is really the only area within User Experience Design with which I have experience, albeit somewhat limited. My previous job was on the Marketing team at an innovative, quirky (in the best way) market research firm and brand consultancy. I spent a couple years helping to craft campaigns focusing on regional biz dev across 10 account teams worldwide. It was a great learning experience in how to write/think/frame for something other than yourself — a brand with its own distinctive personality. It’s been very interesting to see Content Strategy as it relates to design.

Here’s a short analysis of a past blog post, reflecting on the content, voice, and value of the piece:

A few weeks back, I wrote about an idea I had for coffee app, called “coffeepool”. Essentially, it’s a carpool but instead of taking turns driving within a group of people, you’re buying coffee. The content is short and sweet — it took me a long time to internalize the importance of simplicity in writing. I feel as though I’m normally good at keeping things as concise as possible, but there are always ways to improve.

Reading the post again, I think there’s room for some more personality in the tone of the writing. It’s straight and to-the-point, but pretty boring. Blogging, especially on Medium, is such a great opportunity to just “go for it” with your tone of voice. There are no boundaries — take advantage of it. As far as the value of the content goes, I think it does a good job conveying the overall concept of the idea but, again, doesn’t have any fun while doing it.

Check out the post on coffeepool here:

https://medium.com/ga-uxdi-6/coffeepool-the-app-pop-edition-de899112f7ed#.t156y3hbi