Content design at Sage — 2023 in review
As a content design team lead in the Experience Design department at Sage, I’ve had the privilege of working across various business units and products. Our team of content designers is aligned with different areas of the organisation, giving us a unique perspective on the diverse needs and challenges that shape our content design approach. While this structure allows us to contribute to a wide range of products, it also introduces considerations around maintaining consistency and coherence in our design practices. As we close out 2023, I want to take a moment to reflect on the content design journey we’ve undertaken at Sage this year — the highs, the lows, and the invaluable lessons we’ve learned along the way.
Exploring Chat AI
This year, I started to explore the potential of Chat AI in content design. My presentations to various groups highlighted how tools like ChatGPT could support our content design processes. Already there is a lot of potential there. Some designers may worry that a chat AI could make the role redundant, but I disagree. Whilst the generative AI products are becoming more sophisticated in my view they are still going to benefit from an expert to guide them. I like to think of the tool as a content design intern — someone to bounce ideas off.
Collaborative Content-First approach
We successfully implemented a content-first strategy in two major projects. This approach, focusing on a value proposition framework, was pivotal in identifying and concentrating on task management as our primary objective. For teams like Client Management, which initially had limited content design influence, this felt like a turning point, offering our designers newfound opportunities to hone their skills and contribute more significantly to project designs.
Changed approach to managing content
For over 3 years, we’ve followed a process that allowed us to connect the content in our Figma designs to the github repos being used by our developers. This also had the benefit of exposing the content strings to translation teams with an element of UI context that would otherwise be a challenge to obtain. Despite a lot of effort, we were never able to smooth this process to the point where it clearly demonstrated its value. So, we adjusted our approach and backed out a little. The time saved in this adjustment is being reinvested into more XDQA activities.
Office Collaboration Days
The shift back to office work was a source of frustration, especially given our successful adaptation to remote work during the pandemic. This move felt like a step back in our otherwise progressive work culture. However, this change, though still somewhat challenging, has led to a strong XD community in our Manchester office. We were already running collaboration days prior to the return to work request, but with the high frequency of office days, we’ve formed a good social group as well.
Moving away from technical writing
With a new agreement with Customer Services, the content designers in my area will hand over the help projects we’ve been responsible for. This shift will help content designers to be recognized first and foremost for their design expertise, rather than as technical writers with a side role in design.
Adapting to evolving strategies
The past year brought about some transitions within our product management team. These changes introduced new perspectives and strategies, prompting us to adapt and realign our projects accordingly. While this sometimes meant revisiting and adjusting our initial plans, it also provided valuable opportunities to refine our approach and ensure alignment with the evolving vision of our products.
Decentralised team structure
In an attempt to better align content designers with the ux designers working on a project, we changed the organisational structure so both UX Designers and CD Designers reported into a common manager in a designated business unit. This has made it easier to see what the capacity is for the design team and makes it easier for planning and coordinating with dev teams. What we have seen however is perhaps the loss of team identity. We used to have a weekly team meeting with around 20 designers. During this we could discuss content design issues. It would help bring light on cross-project content design issues. Now, we have weekly crit sessions but despite the team recognising the importance of these, we’ve seen far less engagement than before the organisational change.
What’s next?
The year 2023 was a mixed bag of growth, learning, and challenges for content design at Sage. It was a year where we embraced new tools, redefined our roles, and navigated through organisational changes. As we step into 2024, we carry with us the lessons learned and the experiences gained, ready to evolve further in our content design journey.
