How to Apply Design Thinking to Content Design and UX Writing

People often want to know about your process; how do you go about implementing content strategy? One popular methodology is Design Thinking, a human-centered problem-solving approach that many in the world of UX use every day. Many associate it with product design, however, its principles and methods can also be effectively applied to content design and UX writing to drive content strategy. Let’s explore how you can integrate the design thinking methodology into your content creation and UX writing process to deliver more engaging and user-focused content.

Understanding Design Thinking

Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that emphasizes empathy, creativity, and collaboration to solve complex issues. It typically involves five stages:

• Empathize: Understand the needs, behaviors, and emotions of your audience.
• Define: Clearly define the problem you are trying to solve.
• Ideate: Generate a wide range of creative solutions.
• Prototype: Build and test small-scale versions of your solutions.
• Test: Collect feedback and iterate on your designs.

Empathize: Understand Your Audience & Business Needs

The first step in applying design thinking to content design and UX writing is to deeply understand your audience and business needs. UX writers must empathize with users to create content that resonates with their needs and preferences; and understand the business to get a clear picture of their ultimate goal. There are a bunch of techniques they use, such as user and stakeholder interviews, surveys, and user persona development. These help content people gather insights into pain points, goals, and behaviors.

Define: Define the Content Problem & Strategy

Once you’ve gathered insights about your audience, it’s time to define the content problem you want to solve. This could involve identifying areas where users struggle to understand information or where they need guidance. Creating clear and specific problem statements will guide your content creation efforts. Define success criteria and Creating epics and user stories.

Ideate: Brainstorm Content Solutions

The ideation phase involves creative thinking and brainstorming to generate content solutions. Brainstorming can be done alone, or on a cross-functional team with designers, developers, and subject matter experts. Although it may not always be an option, a collaborative approach can lead to innovative content concepts and outcomes that resonate most with users. Afterall, diverse perspectives lead to great things.

Prototype: Draft Content Basic Ideas

Prototyping in content design involves creating draft content, user journey mapping, making language suggestions, and defining voice and tone. Write sample content, such as headlines, body copy, and microcopy, and incorporate content design elements like layout and formatting. Prototyping helps you visualize how the content will appear and how users will interact with it.

Test: Gather User Feedback

User testing is a crucial aspect of design thinking. Share your content prototypes with real users and gather their feedback. Pay attention to their reactions, questions, and pain points. Use this feedback to iterate and refine your content until it meets the needs and expectations of your audience. Having your content peer reviewed is another great option, a crit (short for “critique) is a great way to help identify issues and improve design solutions.

Case Study: Applying Design Thinking to UX Writing

Let’s consider an example of applying design thinking to UX writing for a mobile app:

Empathize: Conduct user interviews and find that users are confused about the app’s onboarding process.

Define: Define the problem as follows: “Users struggle to understand the app’s onboarding steps and features.”

Ideate: Brainstorm solutions, including clearer step-by-step instructions, interactive tutorials, and tooltips.

Prototype: Create mockups of the onboarding screens with the revised content and design.

Test: Gather a group of potential users, have them go through the onboarding process, and collect feedback. Iterate based on their comments and reactions until users find the onboarding process intuitive.

Content designers and UX writers are always seeking ways to improve their work and their process. By doing this we ensure that our work is valuable for both our employers and end users. A great resource for content people is the Content Design Manifesto. Our goal is to improve our work and the industry, by helping everyone understand who content designers are, how we work, the impacts of our work, and what we see as the future of our industry. Whatever your process may be, we hope this understanding results in more success for content designers, the organizations that employ us, and for the people our products serve.

Remember that design thinking is an iterative process, so continue to refine your content based on feedback and evolving user needs to ensure its ongoing success in meeting user goals and expectations. Additionally, you should check out the Content Design manifesto, add your signature of support, or get involved by volunteering to help out our mission.