Making content user-centered at Digital Services
Content on government sites need a lot of work! San Francisco is no different. Digital Services is working hard making content as accessible and user-centered as possible.
We’re handling it all between 2 content designers, and we need more help. We’re looking for a senior content strategist right now, and will post 2 content designer jobs later in the year.
We need to recruit for a movement.
Digital Services designs content first
We sit on the design team. Before any mockups are done, we work together on figuring out what content needs to be where.
We make sure at least 1 content person participates in all design feedback sessions and product meetings.
We help design better services
Our content work is not just microcopy, limited to individual screens. Our work is a combination of information architecture, content strategy, and UX writing. We help residents succeed in complex processes like buying a home or applying for a cannabis permit.
We help departments understand what it means to be user-centered
The bulk of our work is in reframing our stakeholders’ understanding of their own services. We run workshops to create user stories and get buy in.
We write new user-centered services with subject matter experts. Then we train content leads at the departments to own their own content.
We are still figuring out what content work looks like in the City
We are less than a year into moving department services onto SF.gov. Everything’s still pretty new. We iterate on each workshop, migration, and training session.
We refer to how other government entities have handled content. GOV.UK, 18F, and federal plain language resources are all fair game.
We’re also still working on our content standards, striving for 5th grade reading level if at all possible. Check out our working content style guide at https://sfdigitalservices.gitbook.io/style-guide/ (We’ll need your help filling that out too!)
Join us!
We’re currently hiring content people. Apply at https://digitalservices.sfgov.org/joinus/
You can also sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of https://digitalservices.sfgov.org/ We’ll let you know of any upcoming roles we have.
Read more about the work we’re doing, our principles, and more about the team.