I’m content strategist for Content Design London
founded by Sarah Richards, former head of content at GDS
Group of people who go into organisations
help people identify what kind of content they need
how they’re going to get there
started my content journey at GDS 8 years ago
since then worked on many projects
gov, private companies, charities
and often I get this kind of impression of projects…
at the start of a project it’s a bit like an intersection in Tokyo
everyone is waiting to go
there’s a zebra crossing, so I know where I’m going
and off we go
but then this happens
OMG everyone is going in a different direction and doing their own thing
what happened to the zebra crossing?
I get the feeling of chaos, fog, not knowing what’s going on
that’s why I want to talk to you about content patterns today
because they help me organise my work
communicate
keep track of things
prepare for the next stage
today I’lll you how
let me tell you how it all started
we were a small group of people from different disciplines
research, design, UX, developers and content
also the amazing people who were managing the project
working for these people
beloved organisation in the UK
I thought this is just another project
but I soon learned this was different
why?
because you’re dealing with people who are ill
- and when you’re ill it’s stressful, emotional and highly personal
into the project mix
what kind of issues were we trying to solve?
people get inundated
leaflets
online
forms, lot’s of forms
paper for patients
paper for staff
make information more accessible
practical
simple
straightforward
not just about content
it was bringing the NHS patient experience into the 21st century
- so how did it all begin?
we started with a topic that’s very important to the NHS
lots of people with type 2 diabetes
many patients are struggling to manage their illness
this is costly for the NHS
researchers went out and spoke to over 60 patients
this is the start of our discovery map
people journey through the illness in their words
we grouped them into themes
we identified user needs
we crawled around the floor a lot and prioritised our user needs
we made prototypes
researched them
refined them
followed GDS design principles
we were open about what we were doing and sharing regularly
finished diabetes
mild to mediate depression
we should be able to apply lots of our learnings to this new topic
depression and diabetes were different but surely the patterns were the same
patterns? what? I was stunned
and then…
design elements
documented behind my back
why didn’t I know about this?
while I had just written a lot of words - that’s how it felt
I had thought about structure and tone and stuff but I hadn’t documented any of this
designers had done all this work
content work had gone into a big black hole
the content designers had a KAPOW moment
the designers had done all this work and we…
I felt like an idiot
come on, throw something at me
what had I been doing all this time?
we had produced lots of content - good content
but hadn’t thought about our approach and how to structure it
ok, clearly it was time to shape up
learn from the designers
do my own thing
we went back over our work
what had we done so far
long form content and prototypes for tools
our approach
what did we do
why did we do it that way
not a style guide
not, for example, whether we start bullet list with upper or lower case
focussed on:
how organised the information
extrapolate those concepts from this one topic
apply them to other topics
and pretty quickly we learned that you couldn’t really separate design and content on this
we had work collaboratively on this
this was about merging things instead of duplicating stuff
decided that we needed something we called content patterns
focus on 3 things
let me show you an example
how we arrived at a pattern
acne
what we had on the website was a comprehensive but not particularly helpful guide
followed a standard structure of causes, diagnosis, treatment ….
it wasn’t bad but it wasn't good either
lesson 1: what can I do about this
treatment
changed structure and focussed on this first (not causes and diagnosis)
YouTube videos focussed on self-treatment
adopted that model
simple
straightforward
lesson 2: kids wanted to know about medicines
there are lots
reduce the cognitive load to present this information
which aspects of meds to focus on
how to present the info: not a big table but cards
live site explained symptoms in narrative descriptions
not quite the right format
researched showed: people wanted to see images
:how do people know they actually have acne?
is this really acne or do i just have a few spots?
when should I go and see someone about this
we used visuals for different things: symptoms, progression of symptoms and urgency (see someone now if it looks like this)
option to expand images: privacy and squeamishness
warts, head lice etc
I’ll spare you images of those things
constantly discussed our findings
changed the solutions
so we turned all that thinking into something more formal
we had our first content pattern
symptoms with images
or maybe just a simple bullet list
conditions with similar symptoms
If you’re not sure it’s X
positioning of symptoms
formalising
identify variations
describe the overall pattern
in research we found that people mentioned causes
when asked why they couldn’t really tell us
probing 2 reasons:
I want to put a label on this pain
then I know what I can do about it
people going into hospital
no idea what was happening when with whom
simple step list help them understand process
address emotional needs: uncertainty, anxiety
Your pharmacist can help you with X
this was an NHS objective to encourage people to talk to a pharmacist about simple illnesses
our content patterns included formats for headings and links
based on user research, analytics
based on user needs
iteration
product of out discovery work
described these concepts
gave examples to show how it should be done
conceptual thinking
for example, how do we write about and describe pain
pain was interesting from a content point of view because it’s so subjective
what’s bad pain for me might be just an itch for you
people’s descriptions of pain were very subjective, sometimes very poetic
so how do we advise people what to when the pain got too bad
when to see a doctor
first we just used very plain language like you see here
but when we started talking to nurses about this they did something quite different
they linked it to daily activities
is the pain so bad that you can’t get out of bed, make food, go to work, play with your kids, lift that glass of wine
so we adopted that approach which was much easier to understand for people
described these concepts
gave examples to show how it should be done
but we also included content formats
for example different levels of emergency
as opposed to a style guide
concerned with text formats
5 steps to get to patterns
for every topic
went quicker every time
had a library
the pattern work happened collaboratively
we would include them in our crits
we had a content pattern owner who was in charge of updating the patterns
but the work was done in the team
why?
- because…
- because…
- because…
now it’s part of my project routine
You’ll have different patterns for a pharmacy content project
and different ones again for a financial content project
people building the product
people using the product
more open and considered product
go quicker every time you start a new topic
so actually this is ok
because on the way we can document our steps
and talk to each other
and that way keep the overall goal in mind
and it reminds me