Why policy and content design should be friends
Editor’s Note: Kvitlana Tsap is a former member of the Content and Data Strategy Policy team at the Ontario Digital Service (ODS). Prior to joining the ODS, Kvitlana was a writer with the Communications team in Cabinet Office. Kvitlana also studied International Relations and Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto before joining the Ontario Public Service in 2018.
At the Ontario Digital Service, I had the privilege of being part of two chapters — the Content chapter and the Policy chapter. This unique opportunity gave me a glimpse into:
- how both of these teams operate
- the challenges they face
- the many similarities and differences in their approaches
The practice of content design
Through content design, I learned how to communicate to my audience in their own language. This meant always asking what type of content will work best to meet user needs?
Sarah Richards, creator of the content design discipline, says it best when it comes to reflecting on the role of a content designer:
“We don’t just write words, we look at all elements on the page and display them in the best way possible for the audience. As a content person, you have as much skill in not writing words as you do in choosing the right ones.”
This is exactly the kind of user-centered and inclusive mindset that I brought with me when I joined the data strategy team in the Policy chapter.
Policy and content design should be friends
The goals of the Policy chapter were to explore new opportunities for data use across Ontario and find innovative approaches to protect people’s data rights from growing risks.
During my time with the team, we:
- held 10 public and stakeholder consultations across the province
- released three discussion papers
- launched Ontario’s new online consultation platform EngageON
Writing smarter content was at the heart of my work from copy editing reports to reviewing hundreds of consultation data points to craft policy recommendations.
When you really think about it, policy impacts every aspect of our lives. This is exactly why content design and policy should work hand-in-hand to make policies easier to understand for non-experts, and support the government’s plans to have greater openness and transparency.
By understanding how users read and by being intentional with every word when writing any type of product, we are demonstrating that we value our users’ time.
This has the potential to:
- create more room at the table for the general public to become actively involved and engaged in the policy making process
- learn about specific needs and practice user-focused policy making
- reach and engage our intended audiences effectively in consultation
- build long-term trust and legitimacy
Using content design in your work
The following are a few lessons I learned from applying the content design practice to our data policy work:
- Define your goals: come up with a mission statement about what you’re trying to achieve with your product and what action do you want the user to take
- Analyze and understand your user: think about what the user’s challenges are and how your content can support and inform their decision making and comprehension
- Less is more: not more content, smarter content using the inverted pyramid method to put the most important information at the top of the page
- Say it out loud: to cut down wordiness and simplify complex information
- Break it up: break up information into headings to make the reading experience more delightful for the user (no one enjoys reading a wall of text)
- Best tool for the job: sometimes you don’t necessarily need to have a web page, a document or a PDF to communicate a message. Instead maps, graphics, charts or calculators can do a better job of conveying information.
- Gather insights: test how your content performs to figure out how you can iterate and improve in the future
Tools to support content writing and testing
Here are some of the tools I work with to test the content’s clarity and readability (as they say, “measure twice, cut once”).
- Read-o-meter estimates your content’s reading comprehension level by measuring it against the average reading speed
- Hemingway editor highlights lengthy, complex sentences and common errors, which can limit content clarity
- Google trends lets you optimize your word choice by comparing the types of words users prefer to use on search engines
- Headline Analyzer scores your headline quality and rates its ability to drive social shares, traffic and SEO value
You can also use the following techniques to test and evaluate your content:
- 5-second test helps you measure what information users retain and their first impression of content within the first five seconds
- Highlighter test makes use of two different colours to highlight what is clear with one colour and what the user is less confident about with another
- Cloze test is a “fill-in-the-blank” scenario where you ask the user to fill in the missing words in a piece of content to test their comprehension
Further reading if you’re intrigued
The lessons I learned through the Content chapter will stick with me throughout my career.
For further reading, I recommend the following resources:
Books
- Content Design by Sarah Richards
- Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
- Strategic Writing for UX by Torrey Podmajersky
