I was fortunate to be able to steal some of Sarah’s time while she was in Melbourne. I wanted to get a broader insight into her book and how Content Design differentiates itself from other specialised fields within User Experience.

Q: How does UX Writing differ from Content Design?

(Laughs) There’s a whole blog post in this! There are two parts to this. One is the UX thing.

At Government Digital Services in Britain where I worked for 10 years, we actually took UX out of people’s titles because User Experience is everybody’s responsibility, right? I mean, what are you doing if you’re not doing UX?

A lot of people will see UX writing as Microcopy in transactions. They don’t do long-form copy. So, they won’t do information pages, they won’t do selling pages, they won’t do landing pages, they don’t do any of that. They just do microcopy in transactions. And for some people, that’s what a UX Writer is.

This is where the confusion comes.

Content Design, as a term was used for the British Government at the time as I wanted to change the conversation around what we were doing. UX writing wasn’t prevalent then and it wasn’t relevant for us because we were doing more than microcopy.  More than tools and transactions. I wanted Content Designers to understand the whole journey. Do all the data, do all the evidence, be present in the research process. Understand all of that information and then pull it across to wherever it needs to be in the user’s journey.

Again, some UX writers do that. But some won’t then go on to write letters, which is very important because for government, the letters that they send out to people are often the first interaction people have with the organisation. That letter then sends them to a website. If those two communications don’t match, then there’s discombobulation going on in the experience.

Q: It’s true that in different work environments, terms and titles can mean different things. Is this a problem for the legitimacy of the practice?

There are in fact different titles we can call ourselves right?

Content Strategist, Content Designers, Content Writers, Editors, Technical Writers, UX Writers. And often we all have mix of the skills. But they won’t be the same. They’ll be a mix of them. Some people are just picking up a title so that they can get paid more money.

That’s a nightmare. It’s a total nightmare! I walked into a new project once, and I had been told prior to that, “Oh, we’ve got a team of established Content Designers.” I was delighted!

So I walked in on the Monday and said to the team, “Right, we’ve got three days of discovery, and then we’re going to do this and we’re going to Critique on Thursday and then we’re going to sketch words on Friday and then we’ll have the best version out by next week…”

They all looked at me horrified. They had no idea what I meant.

I was mortified because I looked like a twat.

It’s all because I just figured that they all knew what I was talking about because they called themselves Content Designers. They were copywriters and they’d just changed their titles. It was literally mortifying. I think I blushed for three days straight.

Q: How does the term fit? Are you a Content Designer or are you a UX Writer, and what does it depend on?

It depends on what you do before you put any fingers to a keyboard. That’s the main difference between any of these titles. A copywriter, for example, would generally be given a brief and say, “There you go. We’re going to do a tube ad in the summer. This is the subject.” And they will create an environment and they will sell and they will inspire and they will make you love the thing. They may be given some language. They may be given some insight. But in a lot of advertising places around the world, you’ll get none of that because you are expected to inspire.

With UX, again, it maybe that you have a lot of insight from your research, but you have edges to your digital sphere that you’re working in. Whereas Content Design needs to understand a lot. For me, it’s not Content Strategy. A lot of people call Content Designers Content Strategists as well. But I think Content Strategy is more about holding the strategy itself. Who’s doing what, when they’re doing it, who’s got governmental control. All of those things. And Content Design delivers that strategy. There’s this blog post on my site explaining the difference and there’s a little tool that you can go through and answer five questions. It will tell you what sort of writer you are.

Q: In your book there is a big chapter on facilitation and collaboration. If you take that out of the practice of Content Design, what does it become?

This just becomes how to write for the web! Very much choosing the format. Is it a tool, a calculator, a calendar, a video, what is it? Then it’s just a bunch of techniques on how to produce content that is most usable to the audience who is using it at the time.

Q: OK, so what does facilitation give it then?

I find that with most content people, actually producing content is like 30 to 50% of the job. The rest of it is talking to people to get their ideas through. Talking to the organisation about why they can’t have four and a half thousand words on how to put on a jumper. Talking to the organisation is actually a huge part of the content person’s job. That’s why the facilitation is in there, because you can have all the best training in the world, you can have all the content techniques, you can do all the discovery and research. If you can’t communicate that to the person who’s blocking you it’s null and void. Which is a shame. It shouldn’t be but it’s just reality at the moment.

Q: Do you think that content on a site should be frictionless and smooth, or should it be enjoyable too, should it be obvious, should it be loud?

I think it depends on the audience. If you are buying Viagra for example, no. You just need to do the thing. As quick as you can. If you want to be entertained, if an author is launching a new book, you need prose and language because you’re pulling people in and you’re selling something and you’re inspiring them.

If it’s entirely transactional, you can still have your tone.

Some people are saying that Content Design is functional and Content Marketing can’t use Content Design techniques. I really hate that and I disagree. As a person who coined the term, I think I get to say that’s utter bollocks. Because it’s a bunch of techniques that you use to find your user, where they are and what channel they’re on and what language they’re using and what they care about.

How can you not use that in marketing?

How can you not use that in advertising and sales?

It’s exactly the same thing. I think it entirely depends on your audience. Where they are in the journey of whatever it is that they’re doing, and you should manage that appropriately.

Q: What was your motivation to write the book?

The book actually came out because I was running courses and I wanted to give something to people to remember the course afterwards. We hammer through a lot. You get very tired because of a lot of it is new techniques, but based on stuff that they’ve already done.

So that can sometimes be a bit harder, because the people you are teaching are in an industry and they understand what they’re doing. They think, “Oh, this is just a bit of a little something on top.” Then they realise that we’re going to take away that foundation they know and then build up.

So it can get quite confusing. It’s really intense. It’s a very intense course. So I wanted to give them something to go away with afterwards, and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. At one point, I was like, “This is just ridiculous. It’s now a small book.”

It actually took six days to write. Six weeks to muck about with and then two years to publish! I spoke with two publishers and they wouldn’t let me get away with the layout I wanted. They wanted it to look like any other textbook.

So I decided to self-publish because and I’m like, “It’s a book about Content Design. About how content AND design work together. I don’t want it to look like every other textbook.” People are not interested in reading an academic textbook. As a reader you have to be totally absorbed with your subject.

Q: What was the process like for you as an editor and content person, having your work dissected and combed through and critiqued?

I think actually going through a process like that gives you a better understanding of what it’s like to be on the other end of a Content Designer. When they’re saying, “Why are we saying that? Why have we got four and a half thousand words on how to put on a jumper. That’s ridiculous.”

Q: What difference do you hope this book makes for the world of Design

Funnily enough, when I first wrote it, content people picked it up. We do get a lot of Journalists and Copywriters and Technical Writers picking it up to see how different it is from the thing they’re already doing. But now what I’ve found is that content people are buying it and giving it to Designers, Product Managers and Service Designers. They’re like, “This is what we do. Stop telling me to proofread your work. I don’t do that. This is what I do.” It’s a small book. It takes like two hours to read and it’s designed in a funky way that makes people kind of stop and sit back.

I hope people are finding it easier to just say, this is a thing now, because there’s a book about it. Rather than justifying their position all the time. That’s humans talking to each other and they bring all their baggage with them. Whereas, this is an independent thing that sits outside of all that and it can articulate what they do that other people in the organisation wont see because the Content Designers are doing their jobs… Also it if just sways a couple of Product Managers and Service Designers and Designers to talk to their content people, I would be happy!

You can learn more about Sarah’s work and Content Design at https://contentdesign.london/

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The world is seeing a huge demand for UX practitioners to engage users and help convert traditional business models into the world of human centred design. This growth brings opportunities and challenges for all involved.

The role of UX education in this phase is crucial. Not just within the classroom, but within industry too. This is the theme we are investigating from the perspective of schools, teachers, industry and the Uxer’s trying to make sense of it all.

Demand and supply is high, but is one out-stripping the other?
Is there really a straight line from education to gainful employment?
What type of junior practitioners are schools producing and what does industry actually want from them?

Exploring this problem space brought me into contact with many people representing many facets of the UXD ecosystem. Their stories and perspectives gave me great insight into the current state of play in the industry and where things may be heading. There will be a feature article later next week representing these views. In the meantime, I had a great interview with David Travis, one of the foremost educators of User Experience Design in the world.

He talks about the unique opportunity we all have in this game, and highlights the ways we can maximise these opportunities. His verve is genuine and inspiring. You can find David’s article here.

The post A Brief Introduction appeared first on UX Mastery.

I was lucky enough to sit down with one of the foremost educators of User Experience, David Travis. I picked his brain about what he thinks are some important areas of attention for aspiring and current professionals in the industry.

What do you see current graduates or practitioners struggling with when they first enter the field?

There are five things I see people struggling with when they first enter the field. These are:

• Self design
• Thinking product first, not user first
• Believing user likes are user needs
• Thinking that “Big Data” is better than “Thick Data”
• The Oracle misconception

SELF DESIGN

One problem I see in new UX’ers is that they fail to realise they are designing for people other than themselves. For example, when making design decisions they focus on what they like or what works for them or what’s fashionable.

Now, a core concept at the heart of user experience is, “You are not the user”. Intellectually, this is simple to understand but even the brightest UX designers seem to forget it as soon as they get in front of Sketch or any other prototyping tool… At that point, they begin to make design decisions based on their own experience.

Although this is an easy issue to understand, in my experience it’s the hardest for people to overcome. In fact, I think the only way you can overcome it is by immersing yourself in your users’ world: their context and behaviour. In practice, this means observing usability tests, going out on field visits, reading about users, getting first hand experience of their world. It’s very Zen like: you must almost become one with the user to prevent self-design.

You’ll often hear this characterised as “gaining empathy for the user”. That’s definitely an element of what you’re trying to achieve. You want to feel what it’s like to walk in their shoes. It takes work but when you follow that path of user immersion you get immediate, practical insights: for example, you might discover that the 10pt grey text that looks so good to you doesn’t work for your end users because they’ve got poor vision, or they sometimes forget their reading glasses. You may even discover that the team’s great idea for a new product doesn’t solve a problem for the user.

THINKING PRODUCT FIRST, NOT USER FIRST

The second misconception I see is people mistaking a field visit with a usability test. For example, a designer will say to me, “I want to do research on my product but I have no one to talk to because we don’t have any users yet”.

Well that’s a red flag.

That product will almost certainly fail, because the designer is thinking product first instead of user first. Instead of thinking about the product in discovery (the earliest stage of design), people need to think about the users. A good question to ask is “What meaningful activity do users carry out with my product or service?” Whatever your answer to that question, that’s the thing that you go out and research.

So if you’re taking a prototype with you when you’re doing early stage research, you’re not doing discovery at all… what you’re doing is usability testing. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Double Diamond approach that’s been popularised by the Design Council: the idea is that there is this important phase in discovery where you are trying to understand the needs of users before you come up with any prototypes or any ideas about the way that thing could look.

But most people forget that first part of the design process, or gloss over it. They start their research once they have got a definite product idea.

This is a problem because if you do research on a prototype web site, you’ll end up with a web site. If you do research with a prototype mobile app, you’ll end up with a mobile app. But your audience may have no need for a web site or mobile app. That’s what I mean by thinking product first. If the product is the start of your user research then it’s already too late. To overcome this, you have to believe user needs are more important than any product ideas you have. This is because understanding user needs will ultimately help you become truly innovative and develop much better products.

USER LIKES ARE NOT USER NEEDS

UX researchers will often show users a prototype and be influenced by what users say they ‘like’. For example, the researcher will show participants two alternative designs and ask which one they prefer.

Now obviously we want people to like our designs. But a raft of evidence shows that people are not very good at having insight into what’s best for them. I think this quotation from Rob Fitzpatrick captures it perfectly:

“Trying to learn from customer conversations is like excavating a delicate archaeological site. The truth is down there somewhere, but it’s fragile. While each blow with your shovel gets you closer to the truth, you’re liable to smash it into a million little pieces if you use too blunt an instrument.” (Rob Fitzpatrick, The Mom Test).

Asking people what they like is too blunt an instrument. A lot of the time, people may not have a strong preference but they’ll give you an answer, even if it’s not deeply held. To be more delicate, you must ask what works best for users. That means not focusing on what they like but focusing on what they do.

This is about believing that behaviour is more important than opinions.

User’s may well prefer Design A over Design B. But if they are more successful with Design B — that is, they are more successful at achieving their goals — then that’s what you choose. It’s not about what users like; its about what they perform best with.

BIG DATA VS THICK DATA

Why is it that people are more likely to believe the results of a survey of 10,000 people than a usability test of 5? People believe that having a large sample size must make the data more robust and reliable. But the data won’t be more robust and reliable from your survey if you’re not asking the right questions.

Nevertheless, people seem to believe that Big Data (quantitative data from surveys and web analytics) is somehow better than Thick Data (qualitative data from usability tests and field visits).

In fact, both kinds of data are important. Big Data tells us what’s happening, but
in order to do really great design we need to understand why things are happening — and that’s where Thick Data comes in. Big Data helps us identify areas where we should be doing in-depth UX research. And what we discover in field research and usability tests identifies the things we should be checking in our surveys, web analytics and multivariate testing.

Sometimes I wonder if this love of Big Data is actually based on a fear of speaking with users. Thick Data requires you to get face-to-face with your users. But real people can be unpredictable. They can make you feel uncomfortable. It’s easy to skirt this issue by sending out a survey or by studying your web analytics. That way, you can convince yourself you’re doing UX research while not having to get face-to-face with users.

Another example of this “fear of speaking with users” is the growth of remote, un-moderated usability testing. This is where users record themselves doing tasks and then upload the video to a Cloud-based server for you to watch afterwards. You don’t observe the user in real time: they work entirely on their own.
At first sight, it looks like a reasonable example of qualitative research.

But it’s not. If you’re not there to speak to the user you can’t find out why they are doing certain things.

What’s unique about the discoveries from qualitative research is that we often don’t know what we don’t know; we don’t know the questions to ask until we see people behave.

Do you think that’s a symptom of the companies commissioning these tests not properly understanding UXD, or does it fall on the UX Designer?

I think that novice UX designers and researchers tend to do what the client says or what their development team says. For example, their team might say, “Go out and do a survey to find out what people want from our product”. So that’s what they do, rather than pushing back and asking, “What hypotheses do you want to test? What questions do you have? What is it that you want to find out?”. A survey may be a good way of finding that out, but it might not be. So this is about understanding the problem before deciding on the best way to answer it.

THE ORACLE MISCONCEPTION

This is about the UX designer thinking they need to be the expert. Caroline Jarrett captures this well when she writes “User researcher’s fallacy: ‘My job is to learn about users’. Truth: ‘My job is to help my team learn about users’”.

User researcher's fallacy: "My job is to learn about users". Truth: "My job is to help my team learn about users". #ux

— Caroline Jarrett (@cjforms) July 4, 2014

An important part of the UX researchers’ job is to act as a facilitator, not just the person who does UX research. The findings from UX research aren’t useful if they live inside the researcher’s head. The findings need to be part of the development team’s consciousness. You need to immerse the team in the research to help everyone gain competence in understanding users and their needs.

The notion that the team is bigger than the individual is true in many areas of UX. For example, in the face to face courses I run we do a prototyping application activity where we split people into small groups of 3 or 4 and they create paper interfaces. This is very different to the way they normally prototype, which is on their own in front of a computer screen. The upshot is that people discover for themselves that design is best when you have multiple people involved. The problem with an electronic prototyping tool like Sketch is that one person is in control of the mouse, which means one person does the design rather than involving the whole team.

It also applies in other areas like expert reviews. We know from the literature on expert reviews that one expert will find about 75% of the usability problems that would be found if you had 5 experts doing the review. No matter how good you are, no matter how much of a guru you are in UX, you won’t find all the usability problems.

But UX designers and researchers don’t always want to believe this, especially those new to the field. They think they have to appear as an expert. If they don’t present themselves as the oracle of all things user, they worry they will appear weak. In fact, it’s a sign of strength to involve other people in UX research: not just users of course but the team too. That’s a misconception that people find difficult to overcome. Rather than think you need to answer every question thrown at you, become an expert in the process: “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I know how to find out”.

The post Things UX Designers Should Know – A conversation with David Travis appeared first on UX Mastery.