What is content design, exactly?

I’ll be honest, this is a question most content designers find difficult to explain succinctly.

But I’m going to try.

In a nutshell, content design is the opposite of what we were all taught at school. Instead of just writing stuff and hoping for the best, content design is all about planning and researching what you should be producing for the audience you’re trying to reach. Before you write a single word.

This means your content will be more helpful for the people reading it. And, more effective for the internal goals you’re trying to meet.

What content design is

I’ll break it down further, content design is:

• understanding what your audience actually needs for the thing they’re trying to do (ideally by speaking with them directly, but also using by using any existing data you can get your hands on)
• choosing the best medium or format for your content based on what your research has told you – not based on someone’s opinion on what they ‘think will work’
• writing in a way which is simple to understand
• structuring your information well (so the most important stuff comes first)
• getting feedback on your content from your real audience, and using that to make ongoing improvements
  

What content design is not

It’s easy to confuse content design with other things. But that’s ok.

Content design is not:

• only about writing – although content designers are excellent writers, they’ll also do elements of visual design too
• successful if you have traditional ‘sign-off’ structures – tracked changes is the death of good content design. But instead, it involves collaborative content workflows (with the content designer owning the process)
• something that’s only for large organisations – even 1 content designer can be transformative for how you reach your audience and how effective your content is at meeting your organisation’s goals
• something you can’t start doing initially and then scale-up – there are content design approaches you can start doing today. Literally.

So, it’s simple right?

I hope that breakdown has been helpful. There’s lots more we could go into, but now you know the basics, you can take a look at other parts of this blog to find out more.

I’d love to know if you have any other questions about content design? Tell me in the comments! And good luck starting your content design journey.