When starting a new web project, designers tend to focus on the aesthetics and functionality of their work. This means that content writing is a task that is often relegated to the client. The unfortunate consequence of this decision is that the content ends up arriving too late, in the wrong format, and of poor quality.
Twenty-one years ago, Jakob Nielsen, a usability consultant, said this about content written by outsiders.
“The biggest problem is that most people are (and have been) terrible content creators. That’s why we have professional writers, graphic designers, filmmakers, speakers, musicians, and other types of media professionals. When an average person tries to create content, they usually have nothing to say, and what they do say is often poorly said.
-Jakob Nielsen, 2000
When it comes to writing content, I’m sorry to say that clients are often just not very good. My clients are brilliant in many ways, but writing compelling content that prompts readers to take action is not usually one of their talents.
As a web designer, I’ve been guilty of encouraging my clients to make their own content. In one project, I used Google Drive to manage this process. Unfortunately, clients need a lot of guidance on how to use a document editor, and when they do eventually produce content, much of it lacks focus. I had to tell them it was _ not feasible _. They went back to the drawing board, and the project took months, and it was impossible.
I sometimes feel like I spend half my career waiting for clients to write content. The other half is to make sure they’re making something that doesn’t break the design.
In the web design process, content production is very difficult to manage. In this article, I share the main lessons I’ve learned over the years and offer some tips to enhance your own programs.
The difference between design and content
In its most basic form, content _ is the material consumed by the user. Content can take the form of text, pictures, video and audio. It is the tangible material that people consume cognitively, while design is the presentation of content that affects people’s current feelings. They are symbiotic, but they have their own characteristics.
A common misconception among clients, and even among designers themselves, is that design and content are one and the same. As a result, it becomes very difficult to know where the designer’s work ends. Most web designers will admit that it’s not their job to create video content, but at the same time, they may wander off to create _ written _ content. This wouldn’t be a problem if the designers had the expertise and resources to complete this basic aspect of the project, but most of the time they don’t, and neither do their clients. The reality is that design and content are completely separate.
Therefore, in the website development process, content and visual design must be put together.
Why should we start with content
In 19th century architecture, there was a well-known adage that _ form follows function _. It was coined by the architect Louis Sullivan, who eloquently expressed this idea.
“Whether it be an eagle in flight, or an apple blossom in bloom, a horse toiling at work, a lilting swan, an oak in full bloom, a stream winding at the bottom, a drifting cloud, and all the moving sun, form always follows function, this is the law.”
Architects know that if a building does not meet the needs of the real world, then no matter how beautiful it looks, it is unrealistic. This law can be applied directly to the way we build websites today. In contrast, the modern role of the ux designer aims to act as the glue between form and function, bridging the gap between what something looks like and how it interacts. But the truth is that very few projects have a budget dedicated to user experience designers, so this responsibility often falls on web designers who may be more aesthetically focused.
The clients who come to us for guidance are mainly interested in what a site can do for them. Their role, therefore, is to bring their business goals and expertise, not to write pages.
Can you see the problem? There was a hollow gap, a gap that frustrated content production. We need to bring content production into our website design process, which means creating a space for it from the start.
Naturally, this extension of our project will incur greater costs. This often means resistance to demand for professional content production. Let’s look at some strategies for dealing with this problem.
What if your client can’t afford the copywriting?
Not only is content production often an unwelcome aberration for designers, but clients see it as an unnecessary expense. We have to challenge that mindset, and that starts by covering the positives. Professional website copywriter will.
- Consolidate and strengthen the overall brand message.
- Saves you and your client a lot of time.
- Make design (and the design process) more efficient.
- Better end-user experience.
What’s the bottom line? Professionally written content will drive a higher return on overall investment.
Clients often claim that the reason they “can’t afford” copywriting is that they don’t understand what copywriting can do for them. They don’t understand the potential for returns, so they are hesitant to invest. Simple economics tells us that if you can make a compelling offer, the person will want it. Use the points above to instill the vitality of good content, not just on the web, but in business communications more generally.
I recently worked with a company whose service proved difficult to understand at first, but with the help of copywriters, we developed a sitemap that both reflected the end user’s needs and succinctly covered what was offered. This freed me up to work on visual design systems and more technical integration. Without the investment in content production, the end result would have been much worse.
Now let’s look at some strategies for inserting content writing into the website creation process.
A strategy for stitching design and content together
If you want to create a great website that meets your clients’ business goals and doesn’t give you the headache of finding content, you need to pay due attention to copywriting. After years of struggle, here are some core ideas I’ve used to improve the process.
1. Host a content workshop with your client
Spend a few hours focusing on the content so you can figure out what’s important to the project. This also gives the team an internal understanding of the importance of content. Here are some ways you can conduct such meetings.
- Discuss the overall goal by asking good, open-ended questions, such as “What might visitors want from the home page? Who would find this useful? How will visitors continue after reading this page?
- Will be discussed intentionally from the _ appearance _ of thingsawayInstead, we focus on the message and how we expect visitors to feel.
- Consider using a definition of content as a prelude to the meeting and present some good/bad examples. Ask the team to provide on-site feedback to measure and guide their understanding.
This link is symbolic because it is concrete in use. While some solid ideas come out of the meeting, its real purpose is to get the client to buy into the idea that design and content are separate deliverables. To take this one step further, you can choose to treat the workshop as a separate product for the client to pay a fixed fee before you start discussing web design.
2. Work with the copywriter in advance
By bringing copywriters into your workflow, you can effectively merge their services with yours. The common approach many web developers take when preparing quotes for clients is to itemize each service. For example, they might divide front-end and back-end development into different deliverables. This is a problem because it creates an opportunity for clients to ask unhelpful questions. Asking about investments is certainly sensible, but in this case it forces you to justify delivering the individual services required as a whole.
One of the best ways to incorporate content writing into your delivery process is to simply start acting like it’s a non-negotiable step. The next time you prepare an estimate, consider copywriting a standard process, just like any other. Here’s an example of a statement you can put into your suggestion to help you do just that.
Note: A strong content strategy is fundamental to the success of your website redesign. As part of this recommendation, we will develop content for your new website that will resonate with your visitors and prompt them to take action. We will interview you to understand your audience and goals and incorporate them into our content writing process.
If this runs into problems, or if your customer wishes to forgo this section to save costs, refer to the benefits I outlined earlier.
3. Use real content as quickly as possible
To this day, I sometimes find myself using placeholder copies of Lorem Ipsum for my layout. I would slap my wrists every time. In an ideal world, design wouldn’t start at least until you had some content. Unless the purpose of design is rooted in real-world use cases, it’s hard to bring design to life, and placeholder text simply doesn’t do that.
Don’t be tempted to start writing as soon as you design. I’ve tried to do this, and unfortunately, copywriting tends to get lost in the design process and forgotten. Questions are raised only when it’s time to launch, and correcting them then becomes a headache. You don’t want to install a content strategy deep in the design process; Use _ real _ content early in the project.
4. Examine the brand
Our clients’ mission and values provide a deep well of content that most designers have barely ventured into. Many insights and ideas for content can be found here, but it means stepping back from the site process and examining the brand. This may seem quite daunting, but it’s often worth doing in order to understand the project’s core motivation. Here are some questions you can ask your clients to help shape a content strategy.
- Why do you do your job?
- How does your product or service make your customers’ lives better?
- How would your customers describe you?
- Who are your competitors and how are you different?
- Where will this project take you?
The goal here is to get clients to think about themselves and their clients. Your goal is to turn their answers into useful content and design decisions. These discussions can lead to some “shining” moments when clients are struggling to understand the substance of content.
If you feel bold, consider bringing your client’s client into the conversation to add an extra dimension. This may feel intimidating, but you can do it in any of the following ways.
- Ask for existing feedback that your customers may have received from their customers. Look for common questions or complaints.
- Research their clients and act on their behalf or in your own capacity.
- Organize a series of video interviews with customers. This can add tremendous value to the project and make you more important in the eyes of the client.
- Bring a small number of customers into your content workshop with them and let them participate in the discussion.
It’s important to remember that when looking at brands, we’re just looking for answers. How do people experience the company? Advocate an objective agenda to reduce infighting, and that extra mile will work in your favor.
5. If clients are going to write their own content, make it easy for them.
When clients have the internal resources to produce copy, your job will be to guide them. Here are some tips to keep the project on track.
- Delay getting into visual design until you have some real content to work with.
- Give the client a deadline for content delivery.
- Set all files as Word files or Google Drive files. Make sure that each file has a page reflected in the sitemap, preferably with a wireframe to indicate the layout. This gives the client a framework for writing.
- Give them templates and use constraints to help them produce content that works well. For example, have a “page title” field and say it should be no more than 6-8 words. Here is a template I have used with clients in the past.
- If you don’t have the budget for a content workshop, prepare a pre-recorded video for them to watch, or write a post on your blog explaining the main points of the content.
- Make content production one person’s responsibility. If the whole team commits, the project spirals quickly.
Basically, in cases where your clients are not investing in external copywriting, you should try to make the process as simple as possible. If left to themselves, you might receive bits and pieces, and when you finally put it all together, you’ll have a Frankenstein’s monster. By managing the process and making it easy for them to do so, you can help avoid this.
Some resources to help facilitate the content process
Whether you curate content yourself, work with copywriters, or rely on clients to provide it, you need tools and processes. A common approach, and one that has worked for me, usually follows these steps.
- You review your current site to gain insight into what needs to be rewritten, removed, and made from scratch.
- You work with clients and authors to create a sitemap, the overall structure of the site’s content. Hyperaps is a good tool, but there are more complex tools, such as Miro, which provide a space for collaboration.
- You use a wireframed model of key pages to simulate content layout. You can delve into the problem, or you can keep it surface level. There are specialized apps like UXPin and Mockflow, but I’ve found Adobe Illustrator works well with the right wirefram UI suite.
The key principle here is to engage your customers in discussions about content and structure. Designers tend to disappear into a dark room and turn up weeks later with a “finished product.” While some clients enjoy a “done for you” service, most find greater satisfaction in being brought into the process. You do a better job when you tap into their knowledge and experience.
Conclusion: Take the content seriously
The uncomfortable truth is that content is what you design. “Said Eugene Schwartz, an influential copywriter and marketer.
“Copy is not written, it is assembled.”
The best web designers know that their job is about composition and user experience. We provide an interface for what readers are looking for. It’s easy to forget this when faced with the politics and preferences of most web design projects. We were overwhelmed by new trends, fancy CSS animations, and the latest frameworks. We get caught up in problems, which is why we became designers and developers in the first place.
But there is always a need to refocus. Aligning our work with the core goals of the project is, in most cases, simply about communicating the message in the clearest way possible.
We need better online content, and that requires investment. As designers, we can carry the banner for professional copywriters, or we can distract ourselves with aesthetics. I’ve done both, and I can definitely tell you that the former produces better work, faster and with less hassle.
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